A Face in the Flames
by PaintedElectric
Summary: Alternatively Subtitled: Kissed and Cursed By Fire. The fire took half of his face, leaving him thirsty for the chance to repay the favor but she is persistent in preventing him from conquering his last enemy, knowing what the outcome would mean...Full summary in 1st chapter. M for gore, violence, language, and everything that makes GOT the way it is.
1. Chapter 1: The Hound That Bites

_**Summary: The greatest army of the undead has fallen and the only enemy that remains is the one in King's Landing. His only purpose was to live to die later until his little bird sang her songs again to make him stay away from that which would surely end him and he kindled hope that there might be a victory yet to be won, but even she cannot quench that thirst that has left him dry since the fire took half of his face./She has seen the desire in his eyes that she did not understand as a child, but she cannot give herself to any man after how she had been broken before./He is the survivor that should not have been, thrice saved from death to return to his queen but sent to serve a greater purpose with a lesser man. Sandor, Sansa, and Jorah POV**_

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**|Author's Notes/Disclaimer: With only one more episode to go ever of Game of Thrones airing in less than twenty-four hours, I'm finally, **_**finally**_** mustering up the courage to start a story. It's only taken me eight years after I first picked up ****A Game of Thrones**** and decided to read it. And after SPOILER…the death of two of my favorite characters who made it through eight grueling seasons only to die here at the end, I need a major pick me up in the form of blissful fanfiction so let's give it a whirl, see where we land. Rated M for the obvious adult content that Game of Thrones is infamous for. Takes place during and after the Battle of Winterfell with some deviance from TV canon as to how the battle played out and who survived. Also, a certain ship between two characters had sailed, following both the look of the show and the subtle clues of the books, as evident in the story summary, so if you don't like it, you're welcome to get off.|**

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**SANDOR**

His last night in this world should have been spent looking for her, seeking her out and demanding another song, stealing another kiss, and then fucking her into the floor but instead he had spent it drinking with her sister and a damned living miracle several times resurrected. After they had left him to his own devices, his thoughts returned to the Lady of Winterfell, the woman who had once been a child before him. She hadn't even noticed him upon his return with the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow. Perhaps she chose not to, or simply was otherwise preoccupied with the dead on the way to the castle. What was a reunion between old acquaintances when the army of undead was hours away, bringing the worst of winter and the Long Night with them?

Her indifference or obliviousness toward him did not prevent him from imagining all the ways in which he could take her. He had cursed himself for thinking such things of a child, for wanting to enjoy a _child_ but he had banished those self-chastising words when he convinced himself that by the time he had actually pleasured himself to the image of her, she would have been a woman, six-and-ten years at best. Yes, by the time he had thought to touch himself by conjuring her likeness she would have been a woman grown and so his desire was not so damnable. And now she certainly was a woman, deflowered in the worst way, the way he had tried to protect her from in King's Landing.

If anything, it only made his want for her stronger now that she was obtainable in a woman's body and he had gone onto the battlefield sulking that he never got the chance to touch that body the way he wanted.

With his insides warmed by the amount of wine he had consumed while on his watch, he was starting to feel both nauseated and terrified as the realization hit him like an anvil to the head that he was going to die, not by a man's sword, not in any humane way, but by an onslaught of unliving bodies. Facing but a portion of the army beyond the Wall, he had considered throwing himself into the frozen lake to drown rather than be ripped apart and stabbed endlessly as they threatened to overwhelm the small retrieval party. In the pale dawn, he could see his enemies coming for him but this night, he could see nothing beyond the catapults facing away on the northern side of the castle. He had never had cause to fear the dark before, for it meant the absence of fire and he had known that only men or animals could come from the darkness to kill him but here, he could see nothing and the dead lurked just beyond.

The horn had sounded as the scouts declared the dead within sight of the castle and he had risen from his place on the battlements with half a mind to flee, grab a Dothraki horse and make a run for it, far from the North. The thought passed and he took up his dragonglass axe, joining the masses of wildlings and Northerners who would make up the right flank. No one had assigned him that position; he took it up on his own. Standing to attention on the field, he stared at a wall of horse's arses, as the Dothraki were positioned at the front line. Dondarrion, the lad Gendry, Tormund Giantsbane, and the remainder of the Night's Watch stood beside him, all of them as unsettled as he.

The night was eerily quiet, silenced by the snowfall that came without wind. Never had it been so cold as this night, not even on the frozen lake as they had all stood shivering and waiting for an absolution that they were sure would not come. If he had not downed over half of his wineskin, he would have been shivering, but it kept his insides boiling now even though his fingers were going numb at the tips in anticipation of what would surely be his last fight. He flexed them to bring some feeling back into them and Dondarrion took his fidgeting for nervousness.

"Steady, Clegane," he had said.

It was all well and good for him to say so calmly; he had died several times over as a pastime.

Somewhere on the wall, the Lady of Winterfell was watching and Sandor had tried to pick her out among the many faces between the parapets but it was impossible from this distance with so little lighting.

As tall of a man he was, he could not see over the horses and so when the Red Woman had approached the Dothraki horde from the northwest, he only knew that something had drawn their attention far off to the left. Then their arakhs took on the flame, sweeping through them in a tidal wave of fire that gave off enough heat for Sandor to feel standing several lengths behind them. He had taken a step back, an act that did not go unnoticed by Dondarrion who had said yet again, "Steady."

"If you tell me to be steady one more fucking time, I'll push you out in front of me when the dead come," he had snapped.

The Dothraki had charged toward the distant sound of rattling breath and inhuman snarls with their flaming weapons creating a light as strong as the sunrise on the plains. Some all at once, some one by one went out as they collided with an unseen force but for the first time, Sandor was not comforted by the disappearance of fire. They were all but wiped out and it took no master of genius to come to that conclusion, meaning that the next in line to face the dead were the Unsullied and the two flanks.

Lone horses came stampeding back toward the castle, some with their masters still atop their saddles but most were riderless. Ser Jorah Mormont was among the survivors, already bloodied and looking grim at the outcome of their charge. He and Sandor had a silent exchange which told Sandor to prepare for the worst.

As if he could have expected anything else.

They were coming in fast, their guttural noises deafening after the silence that preceded them. Someone called out to stand firm and the Unsullied dropped into fighting stance as one uniform being.

"Shields up, pikes in front!" shouted Dondarrion and those who had shields closed in front of those who didn't, locking their shields together to form a defense and sticking their lances between the intentional gaps.

Sandor hefted his axe high, aware of every thud of his heart madly trying to escape his chest.

Dondarrion touched his arm. His mouth formed the word: _steady_. This time, Sandor heeded him.

The former knight's sword came alive with flame, illuminating the line of wights crashing in on them. The front fighters were massacred on impact and the recovery line went down seconds later. Sandor could only swing and cut through anything that moved with no victory in any of his kills, for every wight he felled, a hundred took its place. He battled until his limbs cried out for mercy, his lungs sobbed for air and even then, he kept swinging, for it was death to stop.

Even with the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow burning through the dead, they were outnumbered and losing dozens of fighters every second so that by the time they sounded the retreat to fall behind the trenches, almost half of their forces had been lost. The dead clawed their way through the blockade as if it didn't exist, impaling themselves and continuing on, impervious to the sharpened staves. The signal to light the trenches and hold their enemy at bay was not received by the Dragon Queen who had taken flight high above and not come back down. With the wights coming in too quickly to chance opening the gate so as to salvage some of the fighters, Sandor found himself backed against the barred gate with the wildling chieftain on his left and Jorah Mormont on his right with Dondarrion and the boy Gendry completing the line. Tormund's nose was clearly broken, Mormont had been cut badly across the cheek, Gendry had lost half of one ear, and Dondarrion was three fingers down on his left hand, but they fought as madly as they had on the frozen lake, the survivors who had first borne witness to the dead army. They had not died then but were surely about to meet any existing gods now.

Sandor blocked a thrust meant to impale Mormont through the throat and Gendry finished the wight off, retreating back into place to keep the line strong.

An overwhelming burst of heat made Sandor's facial scarring twitch in recollection of the flames that had licked away at it as the trench burst into a rippling wall of fire, blocking the dead from coming any closer. Some wights tried to crawl through but were incinerated by the fiery tendrils while the rest stood by mutely, their shimmering blue eyes watching without seeing. Skeletal faces were illuminated in the orange glow, combining Sandor's two nightmares into one.

He couldn't stand to be near either any longer and led the withdrawal into the castle as the little Lady Mormont called for the gate to be opened. He had found his way to the godswood entrance and flattened himself against the cool stone, welcoming its bitterness after all but feeling the flames on his skin again. When the dead crossed the trenches, he was still there and when the dead had scaled the walls and broken through the gate, he was still there. Dondarrion and Mormont called to him to do something as if his blade would make a difference against an unbeatable army.

A wight came within kissing distance of him, only to be stopped by Mormont who had cloven its head off and then shoved Sandor in an attempt to rouse him.

"Clegane, if you don't fight, you may as well take your axe to your own throat and die but don't stand there and do nothing!"

It would do no good to do either and with everything burning, burning so brightly and fiercely, he couldn't bring himself to approach the flames. He couldn't face it anymore than he could during the Blackwater. Some excuse for a warrior he was.

"Clegane, we need you!" Dondarrion hollered. "You can't give up on us."

Ever the optimist, the opportunist to preach the Lord of Light's work and the duty of all men to be honorable until the last, Dondarrion had annoyed him for the last time.

"Fuck off!" Sandor thundered, spittle flying from his parched lips. "We can't beat them. Don't you see that, you stupid whore? We're fighting death; they can't beat death."

Of all things, it was the simple word spoken by Dondarrion that brought him back from the brink of suicide. He considered them all fools for continuing to fight when they could so easily end it all without pain and he had had a mind to do the deed himself when Dondarrion pointed his accursed flaming sword to a point above them.

Her, he had said. Tell _her _that.

The Stark girl, the cold-hearted little bitch who he had shared a drink with him in his last hours, who he had fought for before and with no damn good reason because what was she to him? A girl. A girl fighting the dead with no hope of winning, but who fought with everything nonetheless—and she was in dire need of help.

He had given it to her, fully expecting to die in the process, but inside the castle the flames did not exist, only the dead and the lesser of two evils did not frighten him nearly as much as the combination of them. Death did not come for him inside the castle, nor did it come for the girl. It did, however, finally come for Dondarrion, and it kept him.

Yet, at the end, Sandor was still breathing. He had to repeat it to himself, place his hand upon his breast and feel that recovering heartbeat to know that he had not died in the hours following the battle. As if in a dream, the survivors had converged, devastated by the corpses littering the ground. It had taken the words of Jon Snow to finally revive them from their dreamlike state of mind and call for them to look for the wounded. The dead could wait.

Those not shouting for assistance or crying from their wounds were silent. Those who did not need to speak didn't and even with sparse words uttered here and there to dress an injury or move a body, it was quiet. A hollow victory had been won, an unachievable feat, yet one that had taken all sense of humanity with it. Yes, they had survived, but to what end? How could one ever recover from seeing such devastation? How could one ever drown out the screams of the dying, the rasps of the dead?

Sandor had seen battle and death. He was used to it, unfazed, but this—this was a monster of a different sort.

Most of the night had been spent waiting and the battle itself had occurred in the early hours of the new day and when the dawn came, they first began to set about their work. Throughout the day, they continued to go about with the collection of the cadavers, separating their own from those that had come from beyond the Wall until some quite literally fell over in exhaustion and had to be carried inside to find an hour's worth of rest if they were lucky. The survivors peeled off one at a time to find a place to try and sleep, working through the day in shifts, into the night, and the next morning when they had completed their task.

They built pyres upon pyres, hastily constructed but serving their purpose nonetheless. The bodies almost had to be stacked upon each other to make room for them all for even now with the Night King and his horde dead, no one trusted a body to remain so unless condemned to the fire and they had no energy to dig a mass grave. Among the dead were the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the little Lady Mormont, Dondarrion, the Greyjoy boy, the young maester-in-training, Tarley-Something-or-Another, and Brienne of Tarth.

He couldn't claim to know any of them well, though he knew Dondarrion longest. They were beloved by many, evident in the tears shed for them, quiet tears that did not spout open sobs and shivering shoulders. Openly weeping for the dead required more energy than any of them had left to spend, so it was only the tears that came. He saw the Lady of Winterfell kiss the Greyjoy boy's head before she lit the pyre beneath him. He saw Jaime Lannister stone-faced and dead to the world give Brienne of Tarth a knight's honor while Tormund wiped impatiently at his eyes. He watched the Stark girl stand in sorrow and bewilderment over Dondarrion who had given her the window of opportunity needed to end the battle for all of them.

Yes, the fallen would be missed by those who remained and Sandor thought dully of where he might have lain on the pyres had he fallen, too. Would he be piled in the masses or given a special place of honor near the front? Who would light the fire that would finally claim the rest of him after it had tasted him as a boy? Would anyone care? Would anyone weep? Not likely, not that it mattered.

The feast following the cremation could not be considered a celebration, yet those around him toasted, drank, laughed, and began to bugger as if they had not been witness to an undead army massacring their companions, their friends and family. It was an empty, desperate way to block out the crushing wave of despair, their only gateway to keep from descending into insanity. If that was their way of forgetting, so be it, but the victory seemed empty to Sandor. The dead could only kill him but the battle yet to be won would involve someone who would make his death last for days, maybe even weeks if given the chance.

He would gladly face the wights again if it meant his brother would drop dead without Sandor ever having to go near him, but thanks to the Stark girl, there were no more dead to use on that front, so he would have to do this alone. The notion didn't thrill him, but it gave him purpose.

It was all he could think about as they set fire to their own dead and the flames made a bonfire of the bodies. It was all he could think about as he tucked into his stew and listened to the boy Gendry ask after the Stark girl (and the thought of those two fucking brought a sour taste to his mouth). It was all he could think about as the wildling chieftain sobbed over Brienne of fucking Tarth and it momentarily left his thoughts when he realized that a woman had her hand on his cock under the table.

He had never been less aroused than at this moment and he bared his teeth at her which sent her scrambling for cover. What a fucking fool he was for turning a woman away for coming to him for the first time, ever, but she only wanted the glory that came after announcing to the rest of her little whore friends that she had slept with a warrior and survivor of the Battle of Winterfell. He was willing to bet that she wouldn't even be able to look him in the face as he fucked her.

"She could have made you happy for a little while," said a voice he knew well, though it was deeper with maturity now. Then she was there, red hair, heart-shaped face still the same but with the body of a woman and the eyes of something else entirely. In the crypts she had been layered in furs and the heat of battle had blinded him to her appearance anyway, but now she wore only a ceremonial garb that hugged her figure and as his eyes traveled upward to meet her, he couldn't help but linger fleetingly on the natural curves of her body.

She had seen much, been through more, and it was far worse than anything that had happened to her in King's Landing. Her eyes reflected that, the pain and horror she had been subjected to since he had last seen her all those years ago. The sight of him surely brought back those painful memories.

She sat down opposite him and for a moment, words failed him. What was he supposed to say to her when every dream not plagued by the undead image of his brother or the now extinct wights or fire was centered on her? He had imagined that their eventual reunion would involve him coming to her with blood on his face, battle weary as he had been when he last saw her, and instead of cowering she would give in to him and then he would have her open her legs to him and accept all of him. He did not see himself sipping wine after having just turned a woman away, sitting lost in his own dark thoughts and entirely at a disadvantage.

"There's only one thing that will make me happy." The same thing that would have given him a happy memory to cling to had the Stark girl chosen to end his life out on the plains but he could have that memory now before he left Winterfell behind, have it in the form of a matured woman who would willingly take him to her bed, if he was so lucky.

"And what's that?" she asked, though he could tell that she was humoring him. Either she knew already or thought he was toying with her but Sandor didn't feel inclined to tell her until more had been said between them.

"That's my fucking business," he said with a trace of a snap. She looked disappointed in his response, sad even, though he couldn't imagine why. This was how he had always spoken to her, wasn't it? Had she expected different?

"I've always heard men saying that women are the one thing that can make them happy after battle. And to survive the battle to end all battles, I expected that you might want the same."

"Women don't make me happy, never have," he told her truthfully, watching her intently and waiting for the moment that she would look away from his hideousness.

"That hardly makes sense," she said as she set her goblet down between them.

"It would if you had to pay women for every kiss and fuck. Women don't want to be seen with this," he gestured at his face.

"She wasn't asking for pay."

"And I wasn't asking for her. She saw me covered in blood after the fighting was done and since I was one of the last standing, it made her wet. Wet for a warrior, but not the man. She'd want pretty tales of my gallant deeds in battle and you know how I despise empty-headed girls."

"You didn't despise me," she pointed out.

"No, I was annoyed by you. All your songs and stories, all those courtesies you recited to me over and over like some bard that won't shove off. You weren't convincing anyone but that you had the gall to say it to _me_ was infuriating. You knew I wasn't buying any of it. I hope you realize that now."

"I have nothing to fear now in telling you the truth and you'd know if I'm lying anyway. Even Cersei had trouble telling at times, but not you."

She was still watching him and her eyes hadn't yet left him even for a second. There was an intensity there that there never had been before. She had trembled to look at him for too long and had certainly never lingered on his scarred side. Her doleful little eyes had seen a monster, so what did this woman before him see?

"Used to be you couldn't look at me," he challenged, giving her every opportunity to cast her eyes down, but she leaned forward with a shadow of a smile.

"That was a long time ago. I've seen much worse than you since then."

And she had, hadn't she? Kidnapped by Petyr Baelish whose enemies ended up bloated with poison, raped bloody by Ramsay Bolton who enjoyed setting his dogs on children. A man with a scarred face was hardly enough to trouble her when she'd been through both of those men.

"Yes, I've heard. Heard you were broken in. Heard you were broken in rough."

For all the times he let his tongue wag about and cast curses, he couldn't bring himself to say the word rape to her just now, nor could he offer his apologies that it had happened in the first place. Such things had always been wasted on him so he never felt that he could genuinely deliver his sympathy to anyone.

"And he got what he deserved," said the little bird quickly to cover the obvious hurdle he was attempting to get over, though he could tell that she was grateful he refrained from saying it. "I gave it to him." He waited for her to tell him how she had ended the little cunt that had taken her maidenhead, not because Ramsay wanted her but because he wanted to see the pain it caused her. If the bastard hadn't already been killed, Sandor would have relished killing him; it was always a pleasure ending tormentors.

"How?" he prompted, now starting to become slightly uncomfortable that she wouldn't look away. He didn't like being stared at for his scarring, but she was staring at _him_ and he liked that even less. There was something he had enjoyed from her earlier years when she would glance fleetingly at his face and then at his neck or chest, unable to meet his eye for long. There was power in not being able to command one's gaze but now that she refused to look anywhere else, he felt vulnerable.

Her small smile grew slightly wider. "Hounds."

His name, his title, what he had been and what he still was—to some. The little bird's direwolf had been killed, but she had set the next best thing on her rapist and if Sandor had been there to fight for her, she could have set him on Ramsay too. Her one-worded response gave him cause to believe that she had thought of him when she had the dogs kill the Bolton bastard and it was enough to earn a chuckle from him.

"You've changed, little bird. None of it would have happened if you had left King's Landing with me. No Littlefinger, no Ramsay, none of it."

He gave her this small opening to press the subject of what could have been if she had come with him, what could be now that they both emerged on the other side.

"There are many things I should have done, but we will never know what might have happened if I had. The same could be said of you. Where would you be if you hadn't kidnapped my sister and tried to ransom her? What would have happened if you had gone on alone, wandering the wilderness? Arya would be dead and by that token, we all would be. It's a great achievement, to save the person who saved the Seven Kingdoms."

Compliments never sat well with Sandor. He didn't know how to take them, so more often than not, he didn't. He rebuked them, as was the case now.

"She would have been fine. She left me to die anyway and she still found her way back here without my help."

"Yes, she told me that as well. She told me that you tried your best to get her to kill you."

_Shit_.

If the girl had told her sister what Sandor had said to goad her on, the little bird knew his deepest desire and if she did, why was she here talking to him? Had it disgusted her? Had she come to his table to deliver harsh words and warnings to stay away from her?

Her hand rested upon his and he had to exercise great care to not flinch. No one touched him like this. No one had ever touched him like this and it was nothing more than a gesture of comfort, but he had been starved for it without ever realizing what he hungered for. Now, however, he was terrified of it and asked her through expression only if she was comfortable touching him since he certainly wasn't comfortable with her, ironic given how much he wanted her.

"I wish you had asked to see me when you came back. I didn't know you were here until the crypts…"

Was she trying to hint at more than she was telling? Could he be stupid enough to believe that?

"It wouldn't hurt you to take up the sword when you can be bothered with it, little bird, that way I won't have to come barging in to save you every time."

He wanted her to know that he could still tease her, that he hadn't forgotten the small things that could make her smile.

She grasped his fingers tightly and he put a firm leash on his manhood as it threatened to be his undoing despite the stern talk he had had with it to behave itself the moment she sat down. How weak of flesh he was to be stirred by the touch of her skin.

"Sandor."

He could not recall the sound of his mother and sister's voices, being that they both had died when he was still quite young, but he supposed they were the only females to ever call him by his birth name unaccompanied by his house name. Just his name. Perhaps they had said it with love in their voices; he would never know. To hear his little bird refer to him as such, not the Hound, not 'ser' as she was often prone to forgetting that he was no such thing, not Sandor Clegane. Only his name. That was a mighty leap for her to take, daring to call him something so plain and familiar.

And seven hells, it was so godsdamned arousing to hear his name fall from her lips. How he had longed to hear her say it, scream it as he took her in every way imaginable. She had never called him anything apart from ser and he had never spoken her name either, so they were at an impasse now that she had said it first.

"Without courtesies and titles and formalities, I wanted to thank you for what you did for Arya, for Jon, and for me. The Starks are alive today because you have more humanity in you than you care to admit. And you didn't do it for reward or recognition, at least, not after you found out that my Aunt Lysa was dead. You fought with Jon, you fought for Arya, and you fought for me just as you've always done. We are forever indebted to you and it can in no way repay you, but you are always welcome in Winterfell as a friend to the Starks."

The Starks. She couldn't find the courage to speak her mind even now. She couldn't extend her gratitude on behalf of herself; she had to hide behind her siblings. Nothing had changed.

"That'd be a generous notion if I had a mind to ever come back once I leave," he said bitingly.

What had he expected from her? Her thanks was the same as it had ever been when he saved her from the mob and just because he had saved her siblings, just because he had come for her in the crypts didn't mean she was going to spread herself on the table and ask him to fuck her. The window he had opened for her had been slammed shut and barred by her rehearsed gratitude and he couldn't stand it. A lady she may be, but she still couldn't say more than what was expected of her. If she had wanted to thank him heart to heart, she would have said so, made it personal, but she was as detached as ever and this expression of thanks was one she had practiced. No true expression of gratitude was forthcoming, so he didn't feel obliged to return it.

"You're leaving?" she asked blankly.

"Aye, and I won't be coming back. Fuck the cold, fuck the North. I'd rather sweat my guts out than freeze my balls off."

"Where will you go?"

"That's my fucking business, isn't it?" he reminded her, withdrawing his hand from her.

"Don't do that," she said, suddenly stern. "Don't speak to me like I'm too stupid to know what you're doing."

"You do know what I'm doing, though. You know where I'll go and if I asked you to come with me, if I told you that you'd die here, you'd still stay because you haven't learned shit."

"Sandor—"

"No," he said, slamming his hand down on the wood and upsetting her goblet, spilling its maroon contents between the cracks. "Your pretty words won't change my mind, little bird." He stood up, but she remained sitting, now looking like the frightened child he remembered. She may not be afraid of him, but she still feared his rage. "You have other warriors and heroes to attend to, best attend to them."

"You have always stormed off when I've tried to reach you or say a kind word, but you'll not do so this time, Sandor Clegane," she said boldly, rising to meet him.

"I'd like to see you stop me, girl," he challenged.

That shut her up. She knew she couldn't and if she called to her guards to hold him, it would cause a scene, bring attention to a subject she didn't want projected to the other survivors around them. So he walked away, keeping himself level so as not to draw the gaze of anyone who happened to be watching. He snatched a fresh container of wine off of a serving boy's platter with nothing on his mind other than to find someplace where he could take care of this raging erection that had grown into an unbearable state of arousal.

The snow was falling, gentle in the aftermath of the storm that had come two nights before. Was it only two nights ago? Two nights prior he had been in this very spot, under the archway leading to the godswood where Dondarrion had called upon him to come to the younger Stark girl's aid. His fear of flame momentarily forgotten, he had crashed through battling duos to get inside and find her, though even now, he could not say why he had been driven to such madness. When the dead flooded the corridors, he knew only to run and she happened to be in the way when he did, so he had swept her up and slung her across his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And after she had spoken to the Red Woman, she had disappeared, leaving him to guard the priestess and Dondarrion's body from the wights attempting to break down the door. A few of the dead had made it into the room, but he had fought them off, ready for each wave of foes to be his last, ready to be cut down, fighting a war he had no part in instead of battling his brother as he believed his ultimate fate to be.

Then the Red Woman had seen him standing over his kills and approached him, her gaze reminiscent of the flames she had conjured on the Dothraki blades and in the trench as she observed his scarred flesh. She had tried to touch him there, but he flinched away at those fingers that had given birth to fire.

"The Lord of Light blessed you at a young age, Sandor Clegane, perhaps too early. He will do so again before you leave this world, but you will bear it this time and be born anew."

"Oh, fuck off," was all he could think to say to her. He was so bloody sick of hearing about the Lord of Light after spending months with Thoros of Myr and Dondarrion and with both of them dead, she had come to take their place as this lord's ever-grating mouthpiece. And for her to call his brother's attempt to melt off his face a blessing, it was the final insult. No fucking god would bless a child with a face that frightened all who beheld it.

"The Night King will raise a new army of those already slain as well as those long-dead. The crypts are not safe."

And like the fool he was, he thought of the little bird, trapped underground amidst an army of long-dead members of her family, come to life again to kill her. He found the hole the girl had squeezed through to exit the room and he made it larger to accommodate his size but it was still a tight fit. He plowed through whatever stood in his way, not waiting to see if anything followed him as he ran for the crypts. Fire rained down on him from failing outer structures but he kept on, knowing that if stopped to count himself lucky, something else would kill him. Outside the crypt doors, there was a heap of bodies, those who had tried to break in and failed as the dead fell upon them.

Swinging his axe wide, he cut through the door, though he was surprised to find that it was already weakened. For good measure, he piled up a stack of bodies inside to ensure that no one and nothing else could force its way through, then he staggered down the steps, fumbling with his footing in the darkness. Halfway down, he heard the screams, heard the dead, and prepared himself for what he was about to see, though he had a hope that he would recognize her scream if he heard it and he hadn't yet. Cracked, dusted bodies broke free from their tombs, grabbing any living being they could. A child let out a gurgling choke as a wight bit into its neck.

A lantern overturned, spreading its flame in front of him and effectively blocking him from going any further. He would have to call for her if he had any hope of finding her alive in this chaos, but would she answer to him, would she know his voice?

The flames burned white and orange, throwing light upon a mane of red as she ran with a wight in hot pursuit. Sandor kicked the dirt underfoot over the fire before him, dousing it momentarily and giving him just enough of an opening to jump through. He would not reach her in time; he knew that as soon as he started running. Praying to any gods that might be listening that his aim was true, he tucked his arm back and hurtled the dragonglass axe where it stuck in the wight's back and felled it. He snatched his weapon back up, meeting the little bird's eyes from where she had fallen after being tackled by the wight. She looked the same as when he had pulled her would-be-rapists off of her in the back alleys of King's Landing. On her back, arms by her head, swallowing a dry sob at being so close to harm, and she had been relieved when he came for her. He could see her gratitude behind the shock, but she never had thanked him properly by simply saying the words without some ninny-washing courtesy to follow.

She hadn't known that he was here in her home, by the shock he registered on her face. He didn't know if he should feel hurt because of that; he didn't have time to feel anything as he offered out his hand to her and hauled her to her feet.

"Run, girl!" he shouted at her, using his body to block as much of the passage as possible. Only, she hadn't. She had unsheathed a dragonglass dagger that she had picked up gods-knew-where and stood beside him, clearly inexperienced and ready to flee but idiotically refusing to.

"No, you don't, gimme that and run like I told you!"

She never spoke, only told him without words that she wouldn't go. Then she screamed again as a wight ran at them, driving her knife forward into its empty eye socket. She had been lucky, but that luck wouldn't hold.

Sandor snatched the dagger away from her, turning it blade downward. "If they get past me, _then_ you can use this. Hold it this way, handle on top, and don't miss because you won't get another chance. Now run, girl."

He handed the dagger back and she clutched it to her chest with a thousand words left unsaid, perhaps to thank him or wish him well but he gave her no chance, shoving her away from him.

"_Now_, dammit!"

She ran, her mussed red hair the last he saw of her as he took up position at the center of the path. The wights continued to break free from their stone prisons and all he could think of was how many fucking Starks were buried here that he would have to kill again.

The answer was over twenty-one, not many compared to the numbers he had felled on the battlefield, but enough to make him weary as the only warrior fighting for the defenseless down here. He ached, he was bleeding from a wound in his thigh that had cut right down to the bone, and he couldn't draw proper breath in the musty catacombs of Winterfell's finest corpses. It was a mark of how the battle had spent him in that he struggled to cut down what amounted to nothing more than walking bones, for these wights were not armed and had only their hands and rotted teeth to kill their victims. A tremendous crash told him that something had collapsed on the surface, a wall felled or a tower toppled.

He cut down the last of the crypt wights, spitting out something that tasted of copper and salt. An uneven pounding announced that the dead were breaking through his corpse barricade, and they would be upon him in minutes if not seconds. He had no strength left to fight them, having used up the last of his reserves moments ago. A vicious din grew louder with every breath he struggled to draw and then he saw them swarming the entire passageway. He raised his axe, spreading his stance firmly.

"Come on, then," he roared. "Come and fuck off, you bastards!"

The front-runners ran directly into his blade, giving him no time to swing back for another attack before they were on him. Sharp, rusted steel stabbed into his side with the full weight of the wight behind it, then it tore a line down his hip, pulling him to his knee as the wight dropped of its own accord with its hand still clutching the blade embedded in Sandor's side. The others fell all together, one giant corpse that suddenly ceased moving.

Picking the dirk out of his side, Sandor buried his axehead in the wight's skull for good measure. "Cunt," he spat.

All was quiet from above, the thundering of countless feet having halted and the roars of both living and dead dragons gone. He kept his axe in hand, none too ready to release it in case his senses lied to him and he went to the surface to find the dead patiently waiting for him. The Imp joined him first, wielding the little bird's dagger and poking at a wight experimentally with it.

"Are they all dead?" he asked.

"They all were already, weren't they?" responded Sandor.

The women, children, and elderly crept forward behind him, encouraged by the unmoving remains of the buried Starks and wights. The little bird led them, her face still smudged with dirt and her hair still tangled from where the wight had taken her down. She didn't look to Sandor for confirmation that they were safe to leave the crypts; she looked to the Imp.

"Is it safe, Clegane?" questioned the Imp on her behalf.

"Figure we'd all be dead now if it wasn't," said Sandor with another glance back at the little bird.

He didn't give her time to speak a word to him. As much as he had wanted to hear her before, he only wanted fresh air now, to get above ground and observe the carnage. In the aftermath, he had helped pile the wights to burn and then attended the dead. It was he who found Mormont propped up against the outer bailey bleeding from his gut in the arms of the Dragon Queen, but he had taken the knight for dead even as he lugged him inside to be tended by the maester and any who knew the ways of healing. In this, he saw his little bird assisting but she never noticed him as he continued to stockpile the bodies to be sorted out by those who knew them.

Heading into the godswood, he swept the thoughts of battles and corpses out of his head, replacing them with the feel in his stomach when the little bird had grasped his hand. Taking a long and generous gulp of wine, he reached down to tug apart the laces to his breeches when he collided with someone.

"Watch where you're fucking walking, will you?" he snapped.

"I was, you didn't see me," replied the man on the ground and as he placed his hands to his stomach, Sandor recognized his face in the torchlight, heavily lined and miserable.

"Mormont."

"Clegane."

Feeling the fool for both knocking over and scolding the injured man, Sandor offered out his free hand to the knight who accepted it with a wince.

"I thought you'd been laid up with injuries. You bled enough when I found you."

"Not severe enough to confine me to a bed when I've been resting for the better part of the past two days, though it's still tender." Mormont lifted his tunic to check the bandages beneath it and swore quietly. "And they've gone and opened up again. Pardon me as I seek out the maester."

"You're one lucky fuck, d'you know that? Greyscale, fell off the damn dragon, survived the dead."

Mormont gave an impartial shrug. "Much the same as you, I would expect, after you'd been left for dead, except you didn't fall off Drogon."

"No, I caught you and you almost took me over with you," said Sandor. "You've got one bloody job when riding a dragon and that's to hold on, but you're shit at that."

"Which I never thanked you for—"

"You do and I'll pitch you off the dragon for real this time."

"You like to argue, don't you?" Mormont observed, almost with amusement.

"More than most," Sandor agreed.

Mormont shook his head, holding a careful hand to his side and it came away bloody. He excused himself again to go find the maester and Sandor considered going with him just to make sure he didn't die on the way until he remembered why he had come outside in the first place. His arousal had gone flaccid during his brief interaction with Mormont, leaving him unsatisfied and annoyed, so he turned to his wine with a mind to down it and several more by night's end.

He drank himself into a light stupor kneeling by the pool at the base of the weirwood tree with the fucking ugly face carved into it watching him through its empty sockets. His own face wasn't much more becoming as he regarded it in the undisturbed water. Seizing a rock, he hurtled it down into the glass surface, distorting his image and preventing the need to be reminded of its ugliness. With his body bent over the water, he hadn't noticed the soft padding of footsteps behind him until he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

Glancing over his shoulder with a shiver, he found himself matching gazes with a set of red eyes.

The wolf was bloody, half of its right ear missing, giant wounds in its hide, but it walked proudly, circling Sandor with either interest or hunger. The Starks had always trained their wolves well despite the beasts having minds of their own. They did not harm anyone lest their masters commanded them and this albino one was no different, yet Sandor knew he should fear it. But he was a dog, cousin to the wolf, and wolves had never given him cause to fear them for that reason.

Coming to a standstill on his left, the wolf sniffed him again and then lowered its head to his hand, licking at the grease from his lamb stew still on his fingers.

"Shove off, will you?" said Sandor irritably, pulling his hand out of the way, but the wolf leaned into him as if asking for affection. A Hound giving a wolf affection; the world truly had gone to shit.

"You should consider yourself an honorary member of his pack," said the voice of Jon Snow, appearing beneath the weirwood tree. "He only lets people he takes a liking to touch him."

"Fucking honored I am," said Sandor, draining the flagon.

"Yes, I see that that's your favorite word. Used it a lot when talking to my sister just now."

"Do you really have nothing better to do than to listen to other people bitch about their pasts?"

He knew he should be careful, talking to the Lord of Winterfell, but the wine had given him dumb courage and he couldn't guard his tongue. If Snow had heard Sandor speaking to his sister, he would surely have caught on to Sandor's double meanings even if the lord's sister hadn't.

"I don't care what history there is between the two of you, but she is your lady and you'll show due respect to her. From what I understand, you protected her in King's Landing as much as you protected Arya on the road. And she told me you breached the crypts when the Night King brought the long-dead back to life. We owe you much, but that doesn't give you leave to speak to us as you have been."

_You'd care about our history if you knew I once had plans to take your sister's maidenhead._

"Nothing I say can scare her," he told Snow, wondering if that was indeed true after tonight.

"No, but you should guard your tongue nonetheless. Friends don't speak to each other in such a manner."

"Is that what she told you we are?"

"That's what Arya told me you were."

"She wasn't in King's Landing; she doesn't know shit."

"Clegane, I fought beside you beyond the Wall and I would have died to defend you as you would have done for my family, but you cannot speak with so much hatred in your voice to those who have not wronged you. You are a guest here in my father's house and you are always welcome, but I could see that your words were hurtful to my sister tonight. As her brother, I am inclined to come to her defense and find out why you argued."

"If you want to know, go ask her. My business is my business."

"She's your friend—"

"Do I look like I want friends?"

"No, but you look like you need one. Don't be so quick to discard those who have finally shown you kindness. We won't hurt you."

"_You won't hurt me_."

"_No, little bird, I won't hurt you_."

He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but taking her maidenhead would have hurt her and that was his intent when he had a mind to go to her chambers. He'd let himself into the kitchens and taken a wineskin and after swallowing half of it in one go to calm his nerves, he had decided that there was no greater reward for facing his fear than to go to the girl, tell her of his gallant deed, and claim her precious maidenhead. That had been his only objective but the more she spoke to him that night, the less willing he was to take her in such a violent manner. The offer he had made was his way of calling in a debt that she would have to repay with her virginity when he asked for it. He planned to take her far North and on the road, once she trusted him completely, he would call in that favor and she would have given it to him. Then he could have her as he wanted and though it would hurt, she would willingly have accepted the pain. He could have made her want him when she was still that moldable child but now she most definitely would not want him and he couldn't bear the sight of her, knowing that she would reject him if he asked. He didn't want her friendship or her sister's.

"We live short lives and then we die, Clegane. If you've survived this far, maybe you should consider finding one thing you don't hate."

"This conversation is something I hate." It sounded too much like something from one of the Lord of Light's bloody followers.

"Try to be serious about this. I don't want to have to order you."

"Then don't and leave me be."

He knew the young man wouldn't make good on his threat, not after all Sandor had done for House Stark, but his attitude bothered the Lord of Winterfell, though not as much as the fact that Snow had eavesdropped on Sandor's conversation with the little bird bothered Sandor.

"For as long as you are here, you'll treat Sansa as the lady that she is. If I hear you cursing at her again—"

"Wasn't cursing _at _her, just cursing for the sake of fucking cursing."

"Keep it to a minimum and remember who she is and who you are."

_Rich coming from a bastard._

"As you command m'lord," he said, squeezing as much cynicism into his tone as possible.

Snow called for his wolf to follow in his wake, leaving Sandor to contemplate whether he should go looking for more wine or continue to mull over his impure thoughts. He dipped his hand into the pool, surprised to find it not bitterly cold but pleasantly warmed by the hot springs beneath it.

"I can't believe you turned down a woman who willingly wanted you in her bed."

"For fuck's sake, where do you Starks keep coming from? You and your bloody wolves," said Sandor as the Stark girl came to join him.

"Wolves have to be silent when sneaking up on prey; it's how we survive. I snuck up on the Night King in almost the exact spot you're kneeling."

"I'm overwhelmed. Piss off, girl."

"This is one of the only places where people aren't fucking; I'm staying here."

"Your blacksmith is looking for you," said Sandor, remembering in his hazy mind that the lad Gendry had asked after her and he recalled how ill it had made him feel at the time. Now it felt worse and he attempted to take a pull of wine from the empty flagon.

The girl offered him her wineskin and he gulped from it greedily, eager to drink himself into stupidity while the night was still young.

"I know he was looking for me, I've spoken to him already. And I'm staying here."

"Then I'm leaving," said Sandor, taking an unsteady step as he stood up from the pool's edge and made to leave.

"Aren't we going to talk about how you found me during the battle?" asked the girl, blocking his way.

"I found you during the battle."

What did she want to discuss? The Red Woman had already told her why Dondarrion supposedly had been brought back and had given her some sort of clue that led to the epiphany of her buggering off and leaving Sandor to wait out the storm. The little bird had told her sister that Sandor came to the crypts after. There was nothing else to speak about.

"You almost pissed yourself when I tried to seal up that bite mark on your shoulder with a burning log. You went half mad fighting Dondarrion during your trial by combat because of his flaming sword. You ran during the battle as soon as the Red Woman lit the trenches. You hate fire and you do everything to get away from it. I saw you during the battle, watching everything burn and die and not doing anything about it. You froze, but you still found me."

"You know, I'm starting to wonder why I never sewed your mouth shut." He weaved around her, watching the ground ahead of him to keep from tripping over his own feet.

"Why did you come looking for me?" she demanded.

"I didn't. I found you because there was no fire inside and you ran into my corridor."

"You were standing close enough to Dondarrion's sword that your sleeve could have caught fire."

"Look, girl, are you upset about the outcome of the battle? Would you like to revisit it and this time I'll stay in the bleeding courtyard and not go looking for you if you're going to be so godsdamned irritating about it."

The girl came around to block him yet again, this time with the wineskin held out as a peace offering. "I'm trying to understand you because I don't, not at all. You aren't the Hound I left for dead."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I just want to know what happened that made you abandon your fear."

"Hells, girl, I don't know, so will you shut up about it? Be grateful in silence and sod off already."

She was dissatisfied in his answer, but he had no real answer to give her. If he did, if he knew why he had found the courage to brave the fire and find her, he would have told it to someone to help him make sense of it, but not her. She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wineskin straps.

"Leave that," he told her and she gave a revolted snort, shaking her arm free of it and allowing that he could tip it to his lips and drink.


	2. Chapter 2: Once a Little Bird

**SANSA**

Her reunion with Sandor Clegane had not gone at all as she hoped it would. She knew he would be resentful to a degree that she had rejected his offer long ago to protect her, but she had hoped that by acknowledging all he had done for her family, he would at least consider becoming a member of the Winterfell household. There were so few people left from the life she had once known and despite all the atrocities that had befallen her after meeting him, the Hound was one of those people. But he didn't want to belong to House Stark and spitting her offer back in her face was likely the last word she would have from him.

There had been tension, so palpable on the air that she could taste it. He had gazed at her, hungry and curious for the duration of the conversation much the same as he had when he had last seen her. She had made him laugh, made him smile, which was something no one else in all the Seven Kingdoms could claim. He was a bitter, angry man, emotionally shut off from the world and she was most likely the only person he had had a proper conversation with in years during those brief interactions when he would corner her on a staircase deep within the Red Keep. There was a triumph in seeing him change, however little, now that she could speak to him whenever and however she liked and though he had never tread lightly around her, he had spoken to her differently than she remembered. She knew that the way he looked at her had matured as she had and that he had wanted her to offer more than her friendship when she joined him at his table.

She had watched the serving girl offer herself to him and he had all but bitten her head off, so she knew he wasn't starved for a woman. She knew this from the moment she sat down but she had tried to keep the subject matter as far away from that as possible and succeeded, though it resulted in him storming off most likely to drown himself in wine. She couldn't feel sorry for him in that regard; he had to know that she could never give him what he wanted.

And what did he want? Her. Not her titles, which he despised, and even then, he had wanted her when her claim to Winterfell was forfeit since her mother and brother were traitors to the crown. Not her land, a monument to the dead army. He wanted her.

Arya had told her as much, told her that when Brienne cut him down and he lay bleeding, he had fired every verbal weapon in his arsenal to get Arya to end him and avoid any further suffering. He mocked her friend, the butcher's boy and offered to sell her hide for a sip of wine. He taunted her with his lust for Sansa's body, but those were the words he had meant. He would have taken her maidenhead eventually, even if not then and there that night the Blackwater burned. He might have taken her gently, but she was not his to claim and never could be.

She had given him the chance to apologize and admit his unkind words, but he didn't walk through the door she had opened for him. So she had thanked him for the good things he had done for her family and he hated her for it because she didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. What more could she say to him that she hadn't already? She had thanked him as a true friend would, hadn't she? Grasped his hand, looked him in the eye, smiled at him, and said thank you for her life.

Her life, several times over. He had stopped her from murdering Joffrey on the walkway beneath the display of decapitated heads, her father's and Septa Mordane's among them. Had she succeeded in killing the king, she would have been executed after being tortured. He had saved her maidenhead from the men who sought to take it in King's Landing. He had cut down the wight that had overtaken her in the crypts.

The crypts where she had held the dagger Arya gave her and been unable to do anything with it. A strategist and a schemer she might be, but not a warrior, and she could not face this undead enemy of her ancestors. She ran, weighed down by her furs and skirts and felt the wight tear into her dress, pulling her down. In a last ditch attempt to defend herself, she had thrown up her arms to shield her face and screamed at the eyeless sockets and skeletal grin of a Stark long dead when it collapsed on her, unmoving.

The fire from a shattered lantern had filled the caverns with smoke which stung her eyes and made it difficult to see, but from out of the grey came her Hound, sweating, bloodied, and frightened of the flame and the dead. He was not as tall as she remembered, but then again, she had grown. His hair and beard had grown wilder and now that she saw him clearly, she had actually mistaken him for a wildling to begin with when he rode in with Jon and Queen Daenerys.

Her last look upon him had seen a man in mourning with a mind to do nothing but flee from this place he hated but this man before her had the madness of battle etched into every line and scar on his face. His hand reached to her and though the danger was far from over, she found courage in it as she once had. He would let nothing harm her so long as he was alive to defend her. And stupidly, she had thought to fight alongside him with the tiny dagger that was dwarfed by his enormous axe. He'd chided her for it and ordered her to run but she had made her first ever combative kill, even if the thing that she killed was already dead.

No one was more surprised than she, but her victory was short-lived as he told her again to run after instructing her on how to fight if he should fall and the thought was not comprehensible to her. He would not fall; of all the soldiers and warriors defending the castle and the realms of men, he would be the one to survive. She wanted to say something to him then, anything that he could take to heart, anything to help him find the valor and strength to battle on, but nothing came to mind, so she ran.

And after, he did not seek her out as she thought he would. He busied himself with the bodies and she did the same in assisting Maester Wolkan. He did not rise to toast Gendry as he was made a Baratheon or Arya, the hero of Winterfell, though she caught him smirking with his stew spoon in his mouth. She had watched him throughout the celebration but he never looked her way, too lost in the horrors he had witnessed and the guilt of survival that all the fighters were experiencing though he chose to deal with his in solitude in the way he had turned the serving girl away.

It was no secret that he had gone to whores from time to time in King's Landing, but the gossip that came by Sansa's ear had given her a number that she strangely could not forget: the number of women who had accepted his coin. Four. That was all among the dozens if not hundreds of women who could be bought; only four let him near enough. Sansa could not say if she pitied him for that meager number, for she did not approve of men who turned to a different woman every night for the sake of pleasuring their manhoods, though she did not begrudge women the jobs they took to put food in their bellies. But four women in all of the Seven Kingdoms was nothing at all. Maybe he could have bought more but chose abstinence. Maybe he truly was that unlucky. But why did she care? _Did _she care? She had to, to some degree, for her to linger on the number and feel—something. Which woman had been his first, how old had she been? Was she frightened of him? Was he gentle with her?

She had been with exactly one man, one who had made her swear off all men to follow, but for as many times as he had forced himself into her and bruised her, left her bleeding when he finished, he might as well have been a hundred men.

Still, she could not bring herself to think of Sandor Clegane in such a way even if she thought endlessly about the other women he had been with.

When he stalked off in a high dudgeon, she tended to her emotional wounds with a fresh goblet of wine and returned to the high table where Daenerys took Jon's unoccupied seat beside her.

"No stomach for festivities," said the queen.

Sansa still had her mind on the melancholy Hound's hooded eyes and had to ask Daenerys to repeat herself.

"I meant that while our people find a way to celebrate that they are still breathing, we cannot find joy in it. You lost a dear friend in Theon Greyjoy, a protector in Brienne of Tarth, and an ally in Lyanna Mormont, among others. For our grief, it might as well have not been a victory at all."

Sansa had no desire to discuss her dead friends with the queen who didn't know them, but she inquired after the queen's sword shield to be courteous.

"How fares your man, Ser Jorah?"

"He grieves for his cousin, but your maester worked wonders on him and he came to my table not moments ago to show me that he is able to stand and walk with no consequences. He does not yet have the strength to sit and be merry with the rest of us, but he is alive, and he will recover. For that, I will give your maester anything he so desires that is within my power to bestow."

For a woman who claimed to love Jon, Daenerys put much stock in her knight who was nearly as loyal as a dog himself. But Sansa held no ill will toward the man; he was of the North and had returned to the North to serve his people.

"The man you were speaking to just now, you two have history," Daenerys observed.

"That is the best thing to call it, yes." History. Complicated and confusing and full of misunderstanding.

"How do you know him?"

"He served the Lannisters as a sworn shield to King Joffrey. After my father was beheaded, the king often made public sport of me, but Sandor Clegane came to my aid. He was blunt and truthful and frightening, but he never hurt me, the only person in King's Landing who never did besides Tyrion. He wanted to take me with him when he abandoned the king, but I wouldn't go. I don't know why I didn't, but that was the last I saw of him until he came with you back here to Winterfell."

"Why do you let him talk to you in such a manner?"

"What manner is that?"

"He was brash with you, I might dare call it disrespectful in his expression when he spoke to you. You upset him and he saw fit to tell you off for it. Of all men, why would you let him get away with that?"

She disapproved of that for a queen such as herself would not be talked down to by anyone and those who dared challenge that would be dealt with accordingly. Had the Hound talked to the queen as he had talked to Daenerys, he would be confined to a cell, not allowed to walk away from the table in victory of the argument. He, however, was Sansa's friend and one she still had trouble taming and the queen could disapprove all she liked but she would not be dealing with him.

"I allow him to speak to me as he does because it doesn't harm me to have him do so. He listened to me recite lies and he hated it. I would hate it if he bowed and groveled to me. That's not who he is. He will obey, but not without a curse."

"He fancies you."

Sansa wanted to reprimand her for even daring to say such a thing, but as a beautiful queen, the mother of dragons desired by half the world and hated by the rest, she would know when a man lusted after a woman. Her own sworn shield Ser Jorah Mormont clearly was taken with her and his utter devotion to her did not stop when she took Jon as her lover. She would know, especially if she was watching Sansa as carefully as Sansa was watching her. And Sansa could not deny it because it was true, though nothing would come of it.

"Yes, I suppose he does," she admitted.

"You suppose? You know this man better than anyone here and you suppose that he fancies you?"

"I know it," Sansa corrected herself, loathing the woman beside her. "But it changes nothing. He has always known that there is naught to be between us and has been honorable enough to not pursue me. He is my friend, and he will accept that and nothing more."

"And if he doesn't?"

"He has to; there is no other option."

Daenerys wore her civil smile, false and forced as she rose and put what was meant to be a friendly hand on Sansa's shoulder. "I'm not sure he knows that. It's best to tell him while you still can, while his heart can still mend after you break it."

Though malicious in delivery, Daenerys knew what it meant to tell a man that she could not love him in the way he loved her and Sansa suspected that Ser Jorah was the man who had had his heart broken by his queen. But the Hound did not love Sansa; he wanted one thing only and she had already denied him that, evident in how their slow conversation had gone from tender to hostile. He knew she was not gifting him his desire without her ever telling him no and he had removed himself from the humiliation of it.

Nevertheless, he had a destructive nature and she could not allow him to bring harm to himself over this matter. She was hardly a woman worth getting upset about and if there were women who offered themselves to him, he had a hope of finding a wife, making a living for himself away from the tyranny he had grown up with. She would offer him that chance again and remind him that there was more to life than lusting after women.

The Great Hall gave host to a rambunctious lot, none of whom noticed as she slipped away in search of her wounded Hound. She asked after him, but no one sober had seen him and those deep in the drink were too far gone to remember. Inspecting the usual haunts that lent aid to those seeking solitude, she found nothing, no sign of him. She was starting to worry after a near hour of searching for him, wondering if he had taken a horse and ridden South to complete his last deed, but the stablemaster had not seen him and all of the horses were accounted for.

She climbed the stairs to the dilapidated tower, arriving out of breath with no reward for her trouble since he was not here either. Now thoroughly disheartened that he had most likely drank himself into obliviousness and was lying in the mud somewhere, she made her way back to her chambers, hugging herself against the cold as she walked the outer balcony that overlooked the courtyard. It was just a short walk from here to the lord's chambers that had once been her father's—

He found her. Of course he did. Inebriated and well past forgiveness, he didn't so much as stumble into her at the balcony than trample her, appearing from the shadows and looking surprised to have met up with her. He was swaying unsteadily and she had to stabilize him lest he go over the railing. His breath had enough fumes to make her dizzy and though he still had a firm grip on the bottle in hand, it had to be his third or fourth to affect a man of his size. She wrestled it from his grasp and tossed it out into the courtyard, though she doubted that he noticed.

"I'll take you back to your chambers so you may sleep this off," she offered, putting her hand around his waist to help him stand.

"Don't have chambers," he slurred, trying to bring her into focus. "Sleep in the stables."

The man was doing everything possible to become a social recluse and if she hoped to mend what had been undone tonight, she needed to start by making him sleep like a human and not an animal.

"Not tonight."

"Making an offer, are you?"

She almost let go of him and allowed him to fall to the floor for making the suggestion that she was inviting him into her bed. This was why she could not tolerate drunkenness; the acts people committed, the words they slurred out were all done without knowledge but it bared people to their core, revealing their true selves. She didn't like Sandor Clegane's true self one bit because it was crude and so very unlike the man she knew—or thought she knew.

"You are going to sleep in the chambers that previously housed Lyanna Mormont until you are suitable to appear before the war council, which you are now to attend due to the part you took in going beyond the Wall."

"When did a foot soldier earn the right to be in a war council?" asked the Hound in genuine confusion.

"When I deemed him worthy to be. Now, let me take you to your new quarters."

"You're changing the subject. To seven hells with the bedchamber, girl. You know why I said it. I was looking for your quarters anyway, trying to see if you were in the mood for something other than talking," he said in sluggish speech.

"You can't—"

Draping an arm across her shoulders, he relied on her for support but also pushed her into the closed doorway behind her and any retreat she had in mind was cut off. His eyes burned and though his mind was clouded by the drink, she knew that he could see her clearly and knew how close he was to her. "You knew it, knew it the whole time you were talking to me. You could see it and you taunted me with it, damnable girl."

"I don't know what you—"

He pounded his fist on the door, rattling it in its frame. "Don't lie to me. No more lies, ever."

She had not been this panicked that her words might bring her to an ugly outcome since before Ramsay. The Bolton bastard would hurt her regardless of what she said to him, but in the presence of Joffrey and Cersei, she had had to guard her tongue well, afraid of the punishment she could potentially earn for herself. With the Hound, true as she told him, he could always tell when she was lying—when she was a girl, not that she had tried especially hard to conceal her falsehoods around him this night. If she truly had wanted to make him believe her lie, she could have, but his proximity to her had hindered her ability to play the game at the moment.

"Sandor, you mistake my intent. I joined you tonight at your table as your friend, not to hurt you."

"You did anyway though, didn't you?" His admittance of her words bringing him pain was not something he ever would have said without the influence of the drink. The Hound did not admit to being a man that could be harmed by words or wounds. He claimed only to be a dog with the baser human needs, but as surely as Sansa had become a woman during their time apart, he had become more of a man and less of a dog.

"Didn't you?" he said again. "Because even now, you won't confess to what you see in front of you. Does that terrify you, little bird, knowing that you're a woman grown and that I stand at full mast for you, rock hard for you?"

Yes, that terrified her and she hated hearing him say it, drunk as he was. She had feared as much when she mustered the courage to speak to him in the Great Hall, but for him to _say_ it, she was disgusted, by his inability to keep a level head enough to avoid drinking and by the drink itself. The last time she had seen him, he had been well on his way to this point, but not there yet and this intoxicated monster was the part of his personality that the Hound struggled to hold back.

"Please, don't say things like that."

"Because it does frighten you, doesn't it, knowing that a man who you thought you knew wants to fuck you?" he asked, though his eyes were focused on a splinter in the door framework so that she couldn't be sure if he knew what he was saying.

"Because it's cruel, even for you, and if you were of a sound mind, you would not say such things."

"I would; I just haven't been alone with you to say them. Finally have you alone, but you haven't started running yet, have you? Just standing there, listening to me say all of these foul things."

_Gods, let this be a nightmare._

She glanced under his arm, wondering if she could duck underneath it, if she was still small enough to him that he couldn't grab her if she tried. The wine might actually work in her favor…

"Look at me," he commanded.

One of two commands he ever gave her: look at him and don't lie, neither of which she had been able to follow through on. She had prided herself with becoming more, becoming a woman who could match the Hound's ferocity with her goodness and level head but he was proving her wrong on all fronts tonight.

"Look—at—me."

He was coming out of his drunken state, if only ever so slightly, and his grip on her was strong, rooting her in place. He had grabbed her in such a way several times before, growling harsh truths at her and all but calling her a stupid little girl to her face to make her understand. Now, however, there was no anger at her insolence, only primal need.

"The little bird doesn't have a voice to tell the dog to back down and return to its kennel."

He leaned closer and still, she did not push him away or tell him to stop. _Why _didn't she tell him to stop? Not as his left hand moved away from her shoulder to caress her collar bone through her dress or his right nestled under her chin and then cupped her cheek, pulling her closer to him. His breath was foul and sour with wine, but he was actively trying to not breathe into her face. Then his whiskers were tickling her jaw, his rough, cracked lips pressing just above hers, not quite making contact either from lack of dexterity or because he couldn't fully commit to the deed. He held himself there and she became aware of his presence now more than ever, how enormous he was in comparison to her, how he had always been this massive size no matter her age, how he was very much a man in all meaning of the word. He could break her so easily, snap her in half or crush himself to her and have his way with her.

She found herself holding her breath for an eternity, not daring to let it out so long as his lips were so close to hers. His right hand left her face and slammed against the wall as he pressed his torso against her and his uncoordinated lips finally managed to find at least one of hers and claimed it with heated need. He let out a heavy breath of urgency but she didn't dare move or look down, knowing what she would see and she couldn't bear it. The thought of seeing what she did to this man-it would forever mar her image of him as a gruff, brutally honest, but loyal protector. If she looked, if he continued, he would be nothing more than all the rest of the men who had used her at their leisure.

But she had a sinking feeling that she was about to be exposed to his arousal any moment now because this kiss had gone on for too long and now that she was a woman, he had no restraint. He wanted her and he would take her and she could either scream for help and have her guards beat him senseless, thus ruining any trust in her she had rebuilt, or she would let it happen to her as she became his little bird again.

The notion brought tears and a choke to the surface. This man whom she had trusted, considered a friend, thought highly of—was going to force himself on her and not just because of the wine. He was going to ruin himself and her in the process unless she made the choice now to tell him to stop.

His lips parted from her with a gasp, the back of his palm going to his mouth as if he had just swallowed something mildly unpleasant. He witnessed her standing there, chest heaving with the breath she had been withholding and her hands flattened against the doorway in the pose of someone who had been cornered against their will. The sentient part of him knew what he had done—and almost done—and he muttered a frustrated, self-loathing, "Fuck," before he pushed her aside and pitched forward over the railing, vomiting spectacularly into the courtyard below. The snow muffled the splatter that would have followed, but he wasn't finished and Sansa listened to him empty the entirety of the contents of his stomach. When nothing but bile came up, he sank onto his knees, resting his forehead on the wood of the railing and dry heaving.

She knew she should help him, but after what had transpired between them, she was ashamed to admit that she feared him once again, feared how he might react after he realized what he had drunkenly done to her, feared that he might take out his anger on her. This was not The Hound of King's Landing but Sandor Clegane, a man she knew nothing about except his lust for her.

_But he stopped himself. He should not have kissed you, but he had the restraint to stop on his own._

"Oh, Gods," the Hound moaned. "Don't ever let me drink that much again on a full stomach." He attempted to stand and wobbled with the movement, bending double to throw up what might have been blood. "Fuck me, what's left?"

She ought to leave him here as punishment, let him sleep on the balcony and awake to a throbbing head and twisting stomach and when he remembered—if he remembered—what the drink had driven him to do, he would beg her forgiveness. Or would he? The Hound never would have, but what would Sandor Clegane do? From what she gathered of this man, he would steal a horse and exile himself in shame, though he would never give name to the feeling.

He was a man in need, having lived a solitary and neglectful life. He didn't know how to ask for help and never would, but he needed it so very badly right now at his most vulnerable. If Sansa didn't give it to him, no one ever would.

"Can you walk?" she asked when she found her voice.

"Not prettily," he responded.

She stepped in under his arm, letting some of his enormous weight lean against her. "Come, you need rest."

"Think I can't battle an army of wights right now?" he challenged with bile clinging to his beard. "Think I'm not worth a shit?"

"I know you are, and I know you can. I've seen you in battle, but you are drunk and you'll not be sobering up in the stables. Lean on me, now."

"I'll only squash you."

Sansa took half of his weight, feeling her knees start to tremble with the effort of him but when he saw how she stubbornly insisted on doing this herself, he started walking with her, sliding his hand along the walls as a guide. Winterfell was not a large castle by the standards of others such as the Eyrie and the Reach, but it had enough corridors and back ways that Sansa was able to avoid being seen escorting the drunken Hound to his new quarters. Lyanna Mormont's chambers were once Rickon's and her meager worldly belongings had not been disturbed as Sansa pushed open the door.

She helped him to the bed where he placed his head between his legs and gave a telltale cough. Sansa just had time to retrieve the chamber pot from beneath the wooden bed frame and stuff it between his ankles before he vomited again and she could not mistake the blood this time. If his breath had smelled sour before, it was nothing to the putrid fumes coming from the chamber pot now and Sansa pinched her nose to avoid inhaling the worst of it as she kicked it back under the bed out of sight.

Pouring him a goblet of water, she forced it into his unsteady hands and ordered him to sip at it as she went to the fireplace.

"Don't," he called after her. "I don't want it."

"You'll freeze in here."

"There's enough blankets."

"The fire can't harm you from across the room."

"I said no, girl."

Girl. That was the Hound she knew. Girl, child, little bird, all of them names that suited her no longer, but old habits died hard and he was not so ready to address her as his lady as she had been to call him by his name. He could be so bold (or perhaps so drunkenly mad) to kiss her, but he couldn't call her anything other than what he had when she was a maiden.

Admitting defeat with the fire, she left the hearth as cold as it had been upon her entry and took the furs from the floor to drape across the Hound's shoulders. He struck a dejected figure, hunched over his knees with his stomach's fluids dribbling down his beard. A man who had survived the most notorious enemy to ever walk the earth did not look like this but then again, he had never had the hero's appearance; he despised it and went out of his way to avoid it.

Sansa dipped the cloth for the wash basin in the water, wringing it until it no longer dripped, and went to him, uncertain of how to proceed. He had made himself familiar to her in the way he had touched her tonight, but besides the friendly grasp of his hand at dinner, he did not accept her touch in return on his bare skin.

Standing over him and not quite sure if he was coherent enough to know that she was there, she extended her hand to mop up a trickle of vomit at the corner of his beard. He let her get one good wipe in and then pushed her hand away without looking at her. She took the untouched goblet from his hand and pressed the cloth to them instead so he could attend to the mess on his face himself.

He made sloppy work of it, wincing as his left hand dabbed at his whiskers. His arm had hidden what Sansa should have noticed much earlier, but he was bleeding through his tunic. She moved in quickly, leaving him no option to reject her help, and pulled aside the leather padding at his waist to see that the blood ran from just above his hip to his outer thigh.

"What're you doing?" he asked groggily.

"You're hurt."

He saw where her hands were examining him and scoffed. "Patched myself up just fine."

She had no more patience for his lack of cooperation and pushed him down so his injured side faced the ceiling. He swore at her, but she was past caring as she moved the leather further up his torso and pulled his tunic out of his breeches to expose the wound which had pus building up around the edges and dark maroon blood oozing out of it. The cut went down past his waistline and she didn't care to expose that much more of him, but she knew that his wound was infected and his self-negligence had helped it get this far in only a few days.

"Why didn't you go to someone to help you clean this out?" she demanded.

"Didn't think it needed cleaning."

"That was stupid, even for you."

"I didn't think about it all," he said with more lash to his voice. "Was too busy looking for survivors and piling the dead, wasn't I?"

"If I send for the maester, will you let him treat you?"

"No fire," he said incomprehensively.

"That's for him to decide on the best way to handle your—"

Grasping her wrist with need and not ferocity, he pulled her until she was almost bending directly over him. "You promise me, girl, no fire."

"Will you let him treat you without it?"

"Aye."

"Then you have my word."

At ease now, he slumped back with her wrist still trapped in his large fingers. "Shouldn't have done that," he said mournfully.

"Done what?"

"Any of it."

He let go of her and she helped him lift his legs onto the mattress but leaving him lying there even for the small amount of time it would take to find Maester Wolkan did not bode well with her. His next words, however, made up her mind for her.

"Don't come back with him. It won't be a pretty sight."

"He may need help."

"You've done enough, little bird. Quite enough." She moved to the door when he said his last to her, full of remorse and longing. "I should have taken you anyway, whether you wanted me to or not. Shouldn't have asked you to come, just should have grabbed you and dragged you along. We both would have been happier for it."

She didn't dignify him with an answer, shutting the door behind her. He wouldn't want to hear her response anyway. They had hurt each other enough for one night.

Maester Wolkan had retired early, for he was no green boy, but at Sansa's insistent knocking, he had come to his door in his bed clothes and listened to her explain the Hound's wound. After telling him of the Hound's request to not use fire to clear out any infection, she sent the maester on his way.

Now thoroughly spent for the night, she made her way to her chambers, stripped herself of her clothes and donned her nightdress, glad that there was no more restriction at her waist. She lay down and found sleep almost instantly but did not even enter the realm of dreams when a tortured cry roused her. She knew the voice without pause to identify it; she had never heard him make a sound like that, but the cursing that followed was most definitely him. Snatching up a robe and digging her feet impatiently into a pair of silk slippers, she hastened to his room, curious as to how many people he had woken. It was a given that she would have heard him, for her father and mother had deliberately given Rickon a room directly below them, allowing that they could find their way to his room half-asleep if they so needed.

Outside the Hound's door, she found Jon and Arya, both of them also in their night clothes, though they had thought to pull on breeches and boots as well as arm themselves. Sansa let them all in to find Maester Wolkan on the floor with a lump forming on his temple while the Hound lay slightly propped up on one elbow, clutching a dagger in a maddened state verging on the point of rabid.

"What's happened here?" asked Jon.

"Bastard, I told you no fire, damn you!" shouted the Hound. He was still a mite drunk, but not anywhere near as helpless as he had been when Sansa left him and when his eyes found her, he growled, "Told you no fire, too, and the first thing this whoreson does is try to burn me."

"So you hit him?" asked Arya, helping the maester to his feet.

"I examined his wound and offered him milk of the poppy for the pain. He took it and I thought that he would be well under the influence of it when I sought to burn out the infection. The alternative to fire is far more painful, so I surmised that he would not mind but with the lateness of the hour, I must have misjudged the dosage to properly put him under, for he came awake as I stood over him with the iron and he pushed me away."

Jon moved to the other side of the bed to get a better look at the Hound's injury and concurred with the maester. "If you don't burn the infection out, you'll lose your leg and then your life, Clegane. He can give you enough milk of the poppy to make you sleep through the whole thing and never feel it."

"If you want to burn me, you'd best be prepared to fight me for it," promised the Hound.

"I could always knock you over the head," offered Arya.

"I'll gut you too, girl, don't think I won't. No fucking fire, damn the lot of you."

"You said there was an alternative method," said Sansa, appealing to Maester Wolkan.

"There is, but the dosage needed to put him under for that would kill him. He would have to be awake for it and I always recommend fire first."

"I recommend you shove that bloody iron up your arse—"

"Fire is not an option, Maester Wolkan. If you need assistance in holding him down, you will have it. Do whatever is necessary to clean the wound and seal it with the exclusion of fire."

Resigned, the maester opened his bag and rummaged about until he found several lethal-looking utensils. "You had best leave now, my lady, this is not for a woman's eyes."

In full understanding, Sansa prepared to make her exit, but lingered long enough to meet the Hound's gaze. She had hurt him again in the evident betrayal on his face. It had not been enough to tell the maester not to use fire; she should have ordered it and come to the room to ensure that he refrained from doing so. She had given the Hound her word and not seen it fulfilled but despite her error and his earlier command to stay away, he didn't want her to leave now. Her failure would not allow her to sleep anyway if she returned to her room and discovered that something else had been done to him against his will.

"I will stay and help, whatever you need of me."

"I need you and your siblings to hold him down for all you're worth. He's going to thrash and if he moves while I'm removing some of the putrid flesh, I could sever something more vital than surface skin. Do what needs done, even if you must sit on him."

"Give him something for the pain, as much as you dare," instructed Jon, and the maester obliged, offering the Hound a milky white vial which the latter did not take.

"I swear to all the gods: the old, the Seven, the Drowned God, the Many-Faced God, and the fucking Lord of Light, if you give me this now only to burn me while I can't fight back, I'll feed you to the fucking dragons after I've minced you into a thousand pieces with a dull spoon," he seethed.

"Oh, drink it already, you old shit," said Arya and her brash words convinced him where Sansa's gentle ones could not.

The Hound tipped the vial to his lips, watching each of them in turn, distrusting them until his eyelids grew heavy. Sansa took advantage of this to remove the dagger from his hand and toss it out of reach. He fell back onto his pillows, alternating between blinking furiously and rolling his eyes into the back of his head as he tried to keep his wits about him.

Maester Wolkan approached with caution and prodded the Hound's leg, waiting for reaction. He poked him again with the same results and then pinched the skin just a finger's length above where the wound began.

"Stop that; I know you're there," said the Hound tonelessly.

"How is he still awake?" asked Jon. "Can't you give him any more?"

"He would never wake," said the maester. "A man of his size, it's always difficult to ease their suffering with remedies. He is drowsy now, but not incoherent, and that is the very best we could hope for. He feels me touching him, but the pain will be delayed."

"Fucking wine," the Hound rasped.

"No, you've had your fill of that for tonight and several nights after," said Sansa sternly. "Proceed, maester."

She, Arya, and Jon tensed as the maester took a peeling section of flesh in between two pincers and began to sever it with a hand-held saw. Sansa looked away, wishing she had thought to pull the chamber pot from beneath the bed for her own use, for she felt that she was surely going to vomit on the Hound's chest and he would be none too pleased with her for that.

The bit of flesh had been completely removed when the pain arrived and the Hound surged forward with his eyes still hooded. His teeth gnashed and he called the maester one of the most colorful insults Sansa had ever heard, but otherwise didn't move. They were not so lucky the second time around, for his legs kicked of their own accord and Jon had to flatten himself across them to save the maester's groin. On the third removal, Sansa and Arya knelt down on the Hound's arms and pushed their weight into his chest as if he were a bucking beast they sought to tame.

To give his unruly patient a moment of respite, the maester set his tools down and unlaced the Hound's breeches. He lowered them on one side and exposed the remainder of the wound that met his outer thigh. Sansa saw the generous, course hair dotting the Hound's lower torso and the way it made a neat, uniform line that disappeared under his breeches. If the maester pulled the material down any further, Sansa would have a glimpse of the thing that had frightened her so much earlier, so she looked away, determined to avert her gaze until he was properly clothed again.

The worst of the wound was the lower bit, for the blade that had cut him had twisted inside the flesh here and done considerable damage coming out. Fearful that the Hound might bite his tongue in two, Sansa asked Arya to stuff something in his mouth and Arya took Lyanna Mormont's hairbrush handle and stuck it between the man's teeth.

By now the entire castle must be awake, serenaded by the swearing and shouting of a man being tortured but Sansa was sampling it firsthand and most assuredly prone to go deaf afterward. Her muscles were tiring from holding him down, her legs cramping from kneeling for too long and a new pain lanced through her shoulder where the Hound had shaken his arm free and clutched at her, digging his nails in deep. She attempted to shake him off without having to tell him to release her but a particularly sharp sensation from his middle digit made her arch in pain.

He noticed this and with great effort, released her to lock his fingers around the spindles of his headboard instead. When the maester declared his work finished, there were sizeable depressions in the wood where his nails had scraped away at it. Sansa and Arya climbed off of him but he lay still, his face poorly masking his pain as he stared at the ceiling.

Now was the time to leave him alone so that he could release his tears of agony in peace and solitude, but Sansa voiced her concerns about leaving him unattended through the night, or what remained of it.

"There is no need to fear for him, my lady. I will return to tend him in the morning but for now, he needs only rest."

"I would say that battling the dead was easier than that," quipped Jon. "He's a tough old dog."

"And sinfully stubborn," said Arya.

"Come, let him be now," said Maester Wolkan.

Sansa was the last to the door, but she doubled back, pulling the cast-aside furs back up to his chest even though sweat was dripping from his forehead and staining his pillow. He would find sleep and awake with shivers eventually if she didn't take care to remedy the cold now. His eyes were all but closed as she left him, but he might have said something before she could close the door. A simple something, a quiet, mournful, "Little bird."


	3. Chapter 3: The Dragon's Bear

**JORAH**

If there was a sound he knew better than his queen's voice, it was her dragons' roars and listening to Drogon screech not high above the castle, he picked out the wavering tone of distress in it. He had tried to rouse Clegane time and again but now the latter was gone and though Jorah did not see his body lying about, the unreliable lighting could not tell him for certain if the man had fallen. No one remained by his side to battle with him, having all broken off into smaller groups and duos throughout the courtyard, so when he heard the dragon, he pushed his way to the gate.

A Dothraki body lay here, an Unsullied there, a bannerman of House Mormont before him. Names he did not know and then some he did. Clutched in the enormous hand of a long-dead giant, her face caked in blood and her armor dented with her small body crushed beyond reproach was his little cousin, his father's sister's child. As fierce a Northerner as her mother had been, unafraid of men's wars and of men. By the looks of it, she had felled the giant and his heart grew heavy with remorse but also swelled with pride at the girl's feat. The likelihood of her survival against the titanic monster was less than her demanding trial by combat and winning against the Night King, yet she had taken out a devastating foe that could have demolished the remainder of the castle's defenders in as little time as it took for the giant to crush her bones to dust.

Not far from Lyanna's body was another, this one stuck through the back with a spear. The round body, the ill-fitting armor, the boy-like face of Samwell Tarley. Not a warrior, but a determined lad to take his place among the other fighters. Jorah had saved him from the blade not long ago at some point in the battle, but he could not have said how long ago that was. The Dothraki charge might have taken place minutes or hours ago; he had no way of knowing. But Jorah had only saved him to die later, for the young man had fallen with no one left to protect him.

Forcing himself on when every fiber of his being demanded that he drop his sword arm and weep, he found his way outside to where most of the battlefield was deserted, for the dead were within the castle—except for those mounting Drogon, flies stabbing at his armored scales. Only, so many flies could overwhelm a being of his size and he took flight in an attempt to shake them off.

Jorah saw her fall, her white-blonde hair and silvery garb a beacon in the sea of blackness and red. He ran, never as afraid for his queen as in this moment when she was so far away and out of reach.

She stabbed with inexperience, leaving her back unguarded and he swept his arm around her, pulling harshly at her shoulder and a braid of hair to yank her out of the way and take the dirk to the outer gut that would have buried itself in her spine. Jagged steel going in, smooth and ripping on its way out. It was quick, but the blade might as well have been left in there for an eternity for the pain it caused. The rest of his body had come to a dead halt as if it had stopped working entirely and he stared down the shimmering, icy blue eyes of a soulless body. There was nothing there but death, though it might have been saying to him in its unblinking stare: _gotcha._

Behind him, his queen was trying to fight off more but she would fall in moments if he couldn't pull the damned dirk out and convince his body to keep moving. He stabbed the wight in its throat and reached out blindly behind him to locate Daenerys. His hand found hers but she squeezed first.

There were five wights coming at once but the gushing blood from Jorah's gut humbled him to only two, leaving three for his queen who had never wielded a blade before today. They stood no chance. He used the entirety of his body to shield her, sword in one hand as the other held his innards at bay.

A furry, mangled mess of white and red trampled all but one of the wights, ripping the heads off to at least give Jorah a chance to kill them one at a time as their decapitated bodies stabbed at nothing. Jorah cut the last wight from shoulder to shoulder and moved on to the leftovers. Jon Snow's direwolf had ridden into battle with him, but Jorah had thought him lost in the Dothraki charge. The wolf was missing an ear and his maw foamed from the effort of panting. It watched Jorah deliver the kill strike to the severed bodies and when he had dealt with them all, he went to a knee, feeling blood come from somewhere to mingle with sick in his throat and wash up in a spewing fountain of foulness.

The queen's hand rested upon his wound in an attempt to staunch the blood flow, but he only knew it was there because of the weight. He seemed to have lost feeling below the chest. The wolf came close and sniffed at him, licking a small trickle of blood from his neck before rising up to full height, giving Jorah nowhere to look but into those scarlet orbs.

_Get up_.

No voice spoke, but Jorah felt warmth spreading from his numb fingertips as something unnatural twinkled behind the wolf's eyes. It was a command from the Starks of old, calling out to him to find his strength and continue on, no matter the cost. His fight was not done and he would not fall before his time.

Jorah gave a defeated shake of his head. _I can't_, he pleaded.

The wolf came closer until its breath blew heavy and hot on Jorah's face. _You can._

_How?_

A snort from the wolf answered him as the beast stuck its nose under Jorah's arm and tilted it upward. Jorah leaned his weight against the wolf head, clutching at the fur with his free hand as his wobbling legs attempted one last time to hold him. When he had found his feet, the wolf looked up as if commanding of Jorah the very thing Jorah promised himself.

_Not yet. You will not fall again unless the dead fall first._

"Jorah…"

Her voice came to him, frightened as a child's, as it had been when she awoke in her tent after suffering her miscarriage. She had come awake unaware of what transpired and clutched at him as a child clutches its parent when the thunderstorms played their drums across the skies. A queen she may be, and one who had seen much death, but she didn't know what it felt like to die, as Jorah did. She didn't know what it was to lose someone before her to the blood and the blade, for her Khal Drogo had died while she slept and the husk of a human that remained was not him. Her dragon Viserion had disappeared beneath the icy waters north of the Wall and she could only look on in horror, unable to reach him from the air. But Jorah was going to die here with her or before her but not after. Never after.

"My queen," said Jorah.

And then the wights swarmed them. The direwolf came to Jorah's side and Daenerys clutched her dragonglass sword in both hands, determined, terrified. Jorah tightened his grip on Heartsbane, ready…

In waves of sickening fashion, the undead bodies collapsed on each other, their rasps going silent all at once though the shattering noise of bones clacking together could be heard long afterward.

_Now you may fall, Jorah Mormont._

He slumped against the outer bailey, feeling the knot of tangled intestines longing to come out of his midsection.

Daenerys ran to him and cupped his face with a sob of relief catching in her throat. "You came back for me," she said.

"Always, my queen."

"It was a foolish thing to do."

"I don't regret it yet."

In actuality, he regretted not bringing more help and his words betrayed him as he let out a dying moan. Daenerys knelt beside him, shifting his armor aside to examine his wound. Her face was the only confirmation he needed to know how badly he was injured. A maester needed to attend him soon or he would join the masses of bodies littered around them. But he couldn't walk and she couldn't carry him. She was loathe to leave him, so she called for help, hollering up at the allure, but there was no one left to man it and they could not hear her from the ward.

Then Sandor Clegane of all people had come out from under the portcullis, kicking at the bodies strewn over every inch of the ground to ensure that they weren't about to get back up. He saw Jorah and Daenerys watching him and for a moment none of them spoke, but he was the first to move, parting a path to them and when he reached them, the direwolf stalked away. Jorah wanted to call for it to come back, uncertain why he was so calmed by its presence.

Clegane saw Daenerys wielding her sword still and touched a hand to it. "The dead will stay that way now, Your Grace."

The queen did not know him by name, had never spoken to him personally, did not know that he hated being addressed as a knight or lord for reasons of his own. "Ser, please, we need your help," she said, asking and not commanding and for her to forget her place as the queen and ask a common man for his assistance, Jorah knew his queen feared for him more than she cared about her title at the moment.

Clegane towered over Jorah, now seeming twice as tall since Jorah had almost no strength left to stand and had sank into a hunched over position. With none of the gentleness Daenerys had used, Clegane checked Jorah's wound, though his expression was identical to hers.

"Can you carry him, ser?"

"Not 'ser'," said Clegane. "I can carry him, but he needs to be treated now. Run ahead and call for the maester or whoever knows a thing or two about wounds."

"I can't leave him—"

"I'm not gonna steal him," said Clegane and bent double to hoist Jorah over his massive shoulder.

"No, wait—" Jorah protested, but Clegane had already taken him around the knees and set him atop his massive shoulder. He positioned Jorah so the wound did not rub but the motion pulled a cry from Jorah's throat all the same.

"You're hurting him," said Daenerys.

"You asked me to carry him; let me carry him. I can't hurt him any worse than he's already hurting by carrying him inside. Now run ahead, Your Grace, or you'll not have your knight by daybreak."

Jorah spat blood down Clegane's back, swallowing a sob as he was borne through the dilapidated courtyard. From this vantage point with nothing but the ground to look at even though he couldn't even see the ground with how many bodies were covering it, he spotted the unmoving tail of a dragon and prayed that it did not belong to Rhaegal.

"Clegane," he called desperately. "You have to put me down. I can't take the pain—"

In one fluid motion, Clegane shifted Jorah, now carrying him like a babe in the bigger man's arms. Clegane roared at the survivors to clear the way, every footfall causing a fresh wave of pain to shoot down Jorah's belly. He knew that he sounded like a bawling child left unattended by its mother and knew the shame of admitting that he was a man who could die by the sword. His queen could hear him in his agony, her warrior cut down and lessened to a dying man.

"Oh, do shut the fuck up," said Clegane. "You're not going to die yet, Mormont." He deposited Jorah on a stretched canvas held by two battle-marked wildlings and Daenerys called for him to be taken to the maester, given priority over all others. She walked beside him as they carried him inside and he reached for her hand.

"If the bleeding can be stopped, I can wait until the maester attends others, khaleesi. My wounds do not make me any more of a man than the next."

"You will not be noble at this moment, Ser Jorah. If I say that your life is worth more than any other man's, then it is so and you," she appealed to the maester, "Will save him even if you must use up every last vial and tool in your stores to do so."

Jorah's heart tugged both ways: for his queen who so badly wanted to save him and for the maester who was seeing this desperate, unappealing side to the queen.

"If it takes that much to save me, then let me go, khaleesi," said Jorah, biting his lip to keep it from quivering. "I am not worth an army of men who you still need to ever sit upon the Iron Throne. Do not surrender that—all of that—for me."

"If you would have me save him, I must have more hands, Your Grace," said the maester.

"How many?" asked Daenerys, clutching Jorah's hand, though he could not feel her.

"Three."

Bending low to plant a kiss upon Jorah's sweaty, bloodied forehead, the queen caressed his face with shimmering tears upon her cheeks catching the firelight. "Please, do not leave me," she whispered.

Jorah's response was lost to him as the darkness took him.

/ /

"I will rest when he wakes."

"You fought just as hard as him and you're not used to it. If you don't take it upon yourself to rest, you'll drop dead from exhaustion. I promise, I'll sit with him and come find you the moment he wakes."

"You are welcome to wait with me, but I will not leave him."

"Dany—"

Jorah extended his hand, searching for his queen as the film of grogginess remained over his eyes. Pressure around his fingers told him that the damage done in battle did not remain. He tried to open his eyes, but they were heavy with fatigue and he felt that it would take ten men apiece to open them.

"Ser Jorah?"

Still with his eyes closed, he let his lips part to whisper, "Khaleesi…"

Something wet and warm lapped against his face and he wrenched his eyes open to see the battle-weary wolf watching him in what could only be described as concern. Its head rested atop Jorah's arm and upon seeing him awake, it sat up eagerly and appealed to its master, Jon Snow who stood beside the queen at Jorah's bedside.

"He was more concerned for you than she was," Jon joked, taking a knee. "The maester did well on you; you'll live, but it was a close thing. I was stabbed in the same place and I didn't make it—but then again, I was stabbed several times. You take after your father, Ser Jorah, a bear through and through."

Still watching the wolf, Jorah followed it pointedly with his eyes to ask the question his mouth was too weak to ask.

"His name is Ghost," said Jon. "I found him as a pup, the runt of a litter of six. My siblings all took a pup but only two live now, the other Arya's and the she-wolf runs with her own pack in the wilderness. Ghost is the last of the direwolves that call the Starks master."

"But you are no Stark, you said so yourself," said Daenerys.

"Aye, but Ghost doesn't only serve me. He knows Sansa and Arya well. He looks out for my people and my kin. If he chose to fight alongside you in battle, that makes you kin, Ser Jorah," said Jon with a half-hearted grin.

"He saved our lives," said Daenerys. "I don't know how to show my gratitude to a wolf—"

"You can start by petting him," suggested Jon. "A wolf he may be, but he likes to be pet as much as a dog does. And he's more approachable than the dragons."

The queen ran her fingers through the soft fur between Ghost's ear and ear stump and Jorah passed out of consciousness once again.

He had taken his rest, followed the maester's orders, and grown sick of staring at the cracked ceiling above his cot, so that by the time he heard the survivors gathering for a meal to honor the dead, he could stand it no longer. He would not sup with them, for it was one step shy of agony to do anything but lay flat, but he needed to put in an appearance for his queen's sake. She would not be feasting and making merry with the rest of them if she worried for him and her strength was needed in a time of great sorrow such as this despite their victory.

So he had let her see him and come to the high table to ensure her that he was mending well, but then he dismissed himself just as quickly before Tormund Giantsbane or some other drunken warrior could grab him and toast his survival.

He walked in the godswood, seeking the weirwood tree to pray for his father's soul and those of his house, all who had died since he exiled himself. He couldn't stand for long and kneeling took a toll on his abdominal muscles, so he sat in the snow, head bowed to ask his father's forgiveness for bringing such shame to the family. He asked that the gods ferry Lyanna Mormont's soul to the next life and bless her with happiness when she had known nothing but the cruelty of men.

He sat here for a time until he felt the snow seeping through his clothes and chilling him. It would be hells to get back to his feet now that he had sat down out of reach of anything to support himself but a gentle gust of heat on the back of his head announced his new friend's arrival and Ghost came around to plant himself beside Jorah as an assist. Jorah wrapped his arms about the wolf's neck and the powerful muscles within contracted and flexed to help him stand. Ruffling the fur behind Ghost's remaining ear in gratitude, he sent the wolf on his way to hunt.

Then he had been trampled by a wall in the form of Sandor Clegane and as he hit the ground hard on his back, he felt the maester's careful stitching shift to reopen his wound. Clegane looked a mess with his face flushed from anger and wine but Jorah had no means to ask him what ailed him just now when he needed to see to his wound once again.

After, he returned to his room in the servants' quarters, too weak to light a fire as he huddled on his cot with one fur pelt for warmth. He lay on his side, staring at the cold, empty hearth and wondering if he might ever be whole again, well enough to pick up his sword and defend his queen with the strength he possessed when the fight began as opposed to when it had ended.

Shivering, he reached for the vial that Maester Wolkan had given him to be used sparingly. There were so many in need of a supplement to ease their pain, ease them out of the world as they gave in to it and Jorah knew it was a rare thing to come by in winter, which was why he had initially refused it. Others would need it more than he would, but if he was admitting things in all honesty to himself, he wanted to down the whole thing at this very moment. It was not the most pain he had ever been in, for Samwell Tarly had all but flayed him alive when he cut away the Greyscale, but it fell into the same range.

His door opened with a cringeworthy creak and he saw two red eyes peer at him in the near darkness. Ghost let himself in, came to Jorah's bedside, and then hopped up onto the cot with him, though there was hardly room for Jorah alone on it. He made himself comfortable, setting his head on Jorah's side and bringing instant, relieving warmth to him.

Jorah found sleep once again but was wakened in the form of Ghost shooting up on the cot, standing protectively over him as the door rattled in its frame as if the person on the other side was having a hard time of it since there was no lock to keep the intruder out. When the door finally gave way to the frustrated fumbles, Jorah saw Sandor Clegane take an ungainly step into the room and cast about for something that he might recognize.

Ghost settled and lay back down which told Jorah that the wolf recognized Clegane as a friend as well, drunk as he was. The large man looked lost as he brought Jorah into focus.

"Wrong chamber," he commented and then Jorah saw the flagon in his hands. How many hours had it been since Clegane nearly trampled him in the godswood? Or had it not even been an hour and the man had managed to get himself near blackout drunk in record time?

"Clegane, you're a menace to yourself if you continue cantering about in your state. If you were looking for your room, you won't find it, inebriated as you are. You're welcome to stay the night here."

"Not looking for my room," said Clegane, missing his mouth several times and sloshing wine down his front.

It was anyone's guess what the man meant at this time, so Jorah humored him. "Whatever you're looking for, it can wait until morning."

"Fuck off," said Clegane, sliding down beside Jorah's cot and setting his head back to rest against Jorah's knee.

Exchanging confused looks with the wolf, Jorah shrugged. There was little they could do for a man in Clegane's state, especially given how unreasonable the man was when not drowning in the drink. Ghost maneuvered himself closer to Clegane and began to lick at his face. Clegane must have been inebriated to a fault, for he did not even stir as Ghost went at him until some half hour later when Ghost nudged him with his nose.

Clegane kept one eye closed as he tilted his head to make himself aware of his surroundings. He found Jorah yet again, but didn't seem at all abashed at being caught falling asleep on Jorah's legs. "What're you doing here?" he asked.

"This is my room," said Jorah, already tiring with having to answer the same questions. This was why he could never stand to take more wine than he could handle; drunk people were a special sort of annoying.

"Then the fuck am I doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question. You said you were looking for something when you staggered in not long ago."

"How'd you get here?"

"I walked."

"You're bleeding, though." Clegane poked at Jorah's uninjured side with his finger. "Bleeding like a stuck pig. Thought I carried you to the maester."

Jorah had had enough. He was tired and in no mood to deal with Clegane's temporary memory loss this night. "If you want to sleep, you're welcome to it. If you don't want to, you are welcome to stay here provided that you keep quiet, but don't pester me all night." He rolled onto his side away from Clegane and the latter's head slipped from his knee and landed on the bed frame.

"Sour old bear, aren't you?" asked Clegane, rubbing at the tender spot.

"Same as you, grumpy dog that you are."

"But did she make you this way?"

Jorah glanced back over his shoulder to see Clegane watching him, suddenly very alert in expression with those auburn eyes. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Dragon Queen, did she make you the way that you are? She loves the bastard of Winterfell. She doesn't tell you that she loves you even though you're devoted to her. And she cried like a lost little girl when she thought the Stranger would take you. Maddening, that's what it is. She plays two sides of the coin in fucking Jon Snow and weeping over your body. She's the Dragon Queen, she can do as she likes, but it still fucks with your head, doesn't it? Makes you angry at her lover when you should be the one in her bed."

Only those who had been with Daenerys longest knew of Jorah's devotion to her. They knew he was her Queensguard and her sworn shield, knew that he would die for her and that he loved her more than anything. And they knew that she would never return that devotion. But he had made peace with that when she forgave him of his betrayal and was content to be by her side even if she took multiple lovers. He would remain her loyal shield and she would never again cast him out, not after he had all but died for her. Of course that foolish hope that she would come to love him as he loved her was ever-present in his mind and a fire kindled shamelessly on that front when he saw how she had lost all composure when she thought she might lose him to the blade.

But Sandor Clegane did not know Daenerys or Jorah well and had not been in their company often enough to have deduced all of that, yet he was absolutely right. Words of insight and wisdom from the mouth of a dog.

"Not many left like you," said Clegane, finding his way to his feet and attempting to pet Ghost's head but finding Jorah's foot instead and giving it a favorable pat. "Your loyalty to her will be the death of both of you."

"You're poor company even when sober, Clegane," said Jorah, not liking this conversation one bit. He only hoped Clegane wouldn't remember it on the morrow.

"So I've heard."

Clegane clapped Jorah's shoulder and barged right back out the door as unsteadily as he had come in.

The castle was quiet when his next visitor came, carrying a torch with which she lit the fireplace. She sat on the same stool as before and took his hand, smoothing her fingers over the calloused surface. He let himself fall in and out of a light sleep and every time he came to she was still there, watching over him as he had done for her countless nights before. When finally she rose to leave, she left a kiss upon his brow and offered him an expression of love, love for a friend and family, but not in the way that a woman loved a man _as _a man. She would never give that to him and his heart crumbled for it.

He so wanted her and had seen her take three lovers, the last of whom she seemed destined to be joined with. He hated Khal Drogo for raping her and somehow convincing her that his lust was enough to earn her love in return. He hated Daario Naharis for being a smart-mouthed, dashing, insubordinate upstart who charmed her. He hated Jon Snow for it, the young, determined, fearless young leader who was everything she deserved and more. And he hated himself for hating those men who had made her happy.

His brushes with death had convinced him that it was fate that he remain by her side until he grew gnarled with age and could no longer hold a sword. Clegane had called him lucky and stupid, right on both accounts. He was lucky to have made it this far and still draw breath and he was stupid for thinking that fate would reward him with the woman he yearned for just for surviving the horrors of the world.

Fate did not reward any more than the gods did. A man made his own destiny by his own decisions and Jorah could not rely on anything or anyone but himself to give him what he desired. If his queen truly loved him, if she could cast aside every thought and inclination to be by his side and save him, he had to mean more to her than she was willing to admit. He had not had a chance to discuss this with her, for he had not been alone with her often enough to discuss anything but the army of the dead but now that they had conquered that army, Jorah had to come to his queen and demand a private audience with her. She needed to hear him say it once again, that he loved her and that he knew she held him deeper in her heart than she did Jon Snow, a man whom she had known for less than a year.

He had been with her longest, defended her through everything, taken many wounds, suffered Greyscale, and never once questioned her right to the throne as Jon Snow had. The young man was good, kind, and just, and Jorah admired him, but he was an obstacle that needed to be removed in the most humane way possible.

Ghost stirred and Daenerys smiled at him, thanking him for Jorah's life and her own. The wolf considered her and then Jorah and after the battle, Jorah had more reason than most to suspect that the direwolves were as magical as dragons. He had heard voices speaking to him through the wolf when it looked upon him. It sensed his heart and knew what strength remained as well as his desires and fears. Did the wolf know that Jorah needed to break its master's heart to achieve his own ends?

Fearing momentarily that the wolf would lunge at him and rip his head from his shoulders, Jorah maintained eye contact. If his intentions were so despicable that any gods and ancestors working through Ghost would influence the wolf to kill him, then Jorah deserved to die. He only wanted her and had no objective to bring bodily harm to anyone to obtain her. He would not poison, threaten, murder, or have murdered anyone to earn his queen's love, but if his love for her was a sin, so be it.

Ghost lay his head back down on Jorah's thighs and slept.

Daenerys whispered a good night to him and was gone. He stared at the door long after she had, but from the moment she left, the pain had returned tenfold and he finally gave in, downing half of the maester's vial to send him into an untroubled sleep. The contents of the vial, combined with the comfort of the fire and Ghost's gentle breathing took him into that land of possibility as his eyelids fell closed and his mind entered the realms of dreams.


	4. Chapter 4: The Way She Looks at You

**SANDOR**

He shoved Joffrey forward into the safety of the other Kingsguard who had taken refuge in an empty indoor market. Whether he liked it or not, the King was the first priority, but when he had heard the Imp calling for Sansa Stark, he had hastened with the boy King clutched to his chest, dragging him through the streets and ignoring the pitiful threats the little cunt spewed out. He had to deposit the boy in safety before he could look for the boy's betrothed.

Almost as soon as Joffrey's feet touched stone again, Sandor ran, his chainmail weighing him down as he made his way back to where he had last seen the girl. Through the arch, into a back alley, and into an unused stablehouse he went, listening for her cries, for she always made such noise when in danger. She was a loud one when it mattered, even if her little chirping lies that mocked him were nearly silent.

Cry she did, and he knew fear in that moment, listening to her scream for her mother, for help from anyone. It was not the sound of a girl about to be slaughtered but a girl about to be raped and he was ashamed to know it well. He had been privy to such sounds before and had ended some of the male participants but he could never save all of the girls. He wanted to charge forward, sword swinging at anything that moved, but he had to catch the bastards by surprise or they would find time to run for it, and he was adamant that none of them would survive this. He made a promise to the gods that none of them would.

When he rounded the corner, walking on the balls of his feet to avoid lending noise to his already heavy footfalls, he saw one of her legs being pulled open to admit her attacker. Her bare thigh was scratched by the fingers that held it and another man began to pull up her dress to give his fellow rapist easy access to the girl's maidenhead.

Sandor hurt for her. It tore at his lungs to listen to her scream but for the first time since hearing that tender little voice shriek, he was able to do something about it. And he would enjoy it.

The men might have exposed her, they might not have; Sandor couldn't remember. He grabbed a fistful of the man atop her and spun him around to look him in the eyes and relish his kill as the man realized who it was that had come for the girl. He opened the whoreson from hip to hip and squashed the innards underfoot. Then he snatched up another attacker and drove his sword through the animal's spine, paralyzing the filth before he bled out. The third had tried to run for it—stupid filth had run directly into Sandor's arm—and begged for his life, but Sandor trapped him to his chest, drawing his blade across the man's throat and relishing the spurting blood that followed.

The air was thick with a copper scent and the stench of piss of the men who had made water as they died. Straw littered the floor along with various intestinal globs of Sandor's kills and some disgusting soul had shit in the corner of the room, but Sansa Stark lay amidst it all looking at him with such gratitude and hope. Her arms were still above her head, as she didn't seem to realize that no one held her down any longer. Her slender legs were still opened though her skirts covered her below.

He reached over for her and she took his hand, her small fingers dwarfed by his glove. Before he slung her so carefully over his shoulder, he saw her steal a glance at his scarred side and there was a softness in her expression, almost yearning.

And he had been lost to her.

That day moving forward, he dreamt of her and longed for her, longed for that tenderness he had seen in her gaze, for no one had ever given him that before. She could not have understood the meaning of her expression if he had confronted her about it, young as she was, but someday, he might get the chance to tell her.

Only, he couldn't be sure that he had lived past that day, for he went to bed with his hair still damp from rinsing the blood of the crowd off of him. He lay in the darkness for all of ten minutes when his chamber door opened and admitted a hooded figure. His hand found his dagger but he dropped it with a hitch in the back of his throat when the figure removed its hood to expose silken strands of luscious red.

Sandor could find no grasp on reality. Was this the girl he had saved from the mob mere hours ago? Or was this the woman who had come to his table and taken his hand—also mere hours ago? In what realm of time did he live in? Had everything that came after the mob simply been a dream, or was he in Winterfell now, dreaming of time past?

Sansa Stark had a woman's face and as she—good gods—as she let her robe fall away, she also had a woman's body. Full breasts, flawless milky white skin, pure perfection.

He attempted to sit up, but she pressed him back down with a hand to his chest. She stood over him, tracing her fingers across his skin from head to navel.

"I never thanked you for saving me, Sandor," she said in a voice he had not yet heard from her. It was hers, but deep and dark.

She swiftly climbed atop him, taking his throbbing manhood in her hand and positioning it beneath her entrance. She mounted him and rode him hard and furious, commanding that every part of him center entirely on her. He tried to say something to her, say her name for once, but his elation at being inside of her struck him dumb and the only thing he managed to choke out was a shameful moan of ecstasy. When his breaths ran ragged in warning of his impending climax, he clutched at her but she pinned his arms down and he found them to be shackled. Then, she reached behind herself and her hands emerged with a flaming rock the size of his dog's head helmet. She brought the rock smashing down on his forehead.

Sandor rolled onto his side and decorated the stone floor in his own sick.

Someone had taken a hammer to his skull and bludgeoned it without aiming, causing it to throb all over. His side felt raw as if an animal had torn away at his mangled flesh before deciding he wasn't worth eating. When he sat up in a bed instead of among straw and swine, he tried to recall the events of the night before. Drinking, milk of the poppy, and the little bird. He had certainly outdone himself in playing the fool: his head told of how much he had consumed and then vomited back out, his body ached from having three adults pinning him down with ungentle hands, and to top it all off, he was sporting a nearly painful erection most definitely as a result of his nocturnal emissions.

As vivid as his dream had been, he knew it now to be just that and nothing more, a twisted tale of his own dark wants. Now that he had a chance to tend to his long-neglected manhood after being so unsuccessful in that endeavor after the celebration, he reached beneath the bed for the chamber pot and taking himself in his hand, he worked himself hard, for he had years of blockage in his system after turning women away. He had only wanted one, the one he could not have and if he could not have her, he didn't want any, so no whore would do.

He conjured images of his dream to aid in his release, trying to recall the feel of her and the look of her, only he knew neither of them to be true, for he had never seen her bared to him and so he hadn't the faintest idea what she looked like without clothes and he didn't know what she felt like, which was the real loss here. He found his release with the image of her bending over him, holding him down, though he couldn't quite place the memory. It might have been from the previous night or a figment of his imagination but until his head cleared and stopped fucking throbbing, he wouldn't know.

Moving gingerly to avoid upsetting the maester's work on him, he wiped his hand on the cloth meant to clean his face and splashed some of the basin water into his eyes to help wake him. In a small looking glass, he saw that he looked—in a word—like shit. He certainly smelled like it and judging by the ripeness of his trousers, he needed to scrub both vomit and blood out of the material.

He smelled of something other than just his own natural odors, though. He smelled her on him: lavender, honey, and lemon. Had he-? No, he couldn't have, otherwise he would be in chains now for daring to touch the Lady of Winterfell and he would not have had to tend to an obelisk of a manhood this morning. But he had done something during the night between drinking himself beyond coherence in the godswood and waking in a bed instead of the stables where he had been sleeping.

It was either go find the little bird and ask her what he had done or wash himself off first. He didn't want to delay a visit to the Lady of Winterfell, but knew she would think less of his request if he came to her as filthy as he was. Taking his sword for no other reason than out of habit, he found his way to the godswood without drawing the attention of any of the castle's inhabitants who had drank just as much as he and were in various states of waking and sobering.

The godswood was quiet, blotting out the sounds of a castle coming awake with its dense trees. He found the pool he had located last night and saw that it extended further than the darkness had shown him. It was impossible to tell how deeply it ran as it reflected his image back at him, but even if he jumped in to find that it delved leagues beneath the ground, he was in no danger. He had learned to swim when his brother threw him into the river, claiming it to be a game and Sandor had had the option to drown or kick for the shore.

Testing the waters, he found them to be as warm as they had been during the night in the dead of winter. He made quick work of removing his breeches and boots and then scooped great handfuls of water onto them, scrubbing at the blots inside and out with bits of moss until both the smell and the stains came free, then he beat his breeches against a rock to help with the drying process and tossed them over it as he took one step into the shallow end of the pool. He waded in up to his injured side and dipped the bandaged wound into the water to see if the flesh could take the heat. It could, and he lowered himself in, finding the bottom with his heels and walking himself out deeper until the water lapped up around his chest. He pulled off his tunic in one quick motion and checked it for the same sort of stains but only found bits of dried bile on the front. Tossing this too onto the bank, he held his breath and stuck his entire head under the water.

He had not bathed in some time and knew how rank he must have smelled even before the battle but until now, he had never cared how his stink affected those around him. It felt good to run his fingers through his beard and not find filth, to not encounter matted hair at his scalp as he combed out the tangles and grease of gods-knew-how-many days. Cleanliness had never been this pleasing.

Snow crunching underfoot made him reach for a sword that was not at his hip, for he had taken it off when he entered the pool. He considered splashing back onto the bank to get it when he saw that his company was none other than his little bird. How fortunate he had been these past days in finding himself alone with her more often than not. She walked quickly with her eyes cast down, her steps without purpose. It was not in her nature to approach him while he had the indecency of being naked, but he had been surprised by her before. It was an opportune moment to speak to him privately, if that was what she had come for. The closer she came, however, the more he thought that perhaps she didn't even know he was there and that she would be taken by surprise to find him as he was. He relished the thought of her struggling to find proper words but figured that it would be cruel to let her walk so far into the unintentional embarrassing trap.

"Come to pray to your gods, little bird, or did you follow me?" he jested and she leaped back from the pool's edge as if he had splashed her.

He saw her glance at his trousers and then his bare torso before she stared determinedly at the overhanging leaves as she spoke to him. "Forgive me, I only sought solitude."

"This pool is out in the open and you'd have seen me long before you got close enough for me to hear you."

"To be truthful, I was watching the ground, not looking ahead. I had no idea you were here until you knew I was. Again, I beg pardon for catching you unawares."

She wasn't blushing yet; she could be telling the truth. If he stood up to reveal himself, however, she would shade scarlet faster than blood could pump into his once again stiffening shaft. He was starting to become annoyed with the thing, springing up whenever he tried to have a decent conversation with her, whenever he looked at her, whenever he thought about her. His manhood hadn't received this much attention in years and it was trying to make up for that period of disregard.

It wouldn't do to expose himself to her, not in the sight of her old gods if they happened to be watching, but if they were, it seemed a cruel and distasteful thing to ignore the prayers of their worshippers but condemn them for lusting and fucking.

"Well, now that you know I'm here, go about your business, unless it was with me."

"Why are you bathing out here?"

"Because I have all manner of bodily fluids on me after last night and I couldn't think of anywhere else to wash off."

"Last night?" she repeated.

"Aye, don't tell me you've gone and forgotten it as well. I was hoping you could tell me the finer bits since my memory's not cooperating with me this morning."

Was that relief on her face? A blush, perhaps? What _had _he done? He met the anticipation of knowing with curiosity now instead of dread. If his actions brought out pink tinges in the little bird's cheeks, it couldn't have been all bad. After all, she had been there to help hold him as the maester worked, hadn't she? He remembered at least that bit clearly and she would not have stayed away if he had hurt her.

"You do remember, don't you?" he prompted.

"Of course I do."

"Good, then you can tell me after I get my clothes back on. Turn 'round, will you, I'm getting out."

The little bird spun on her heel, shielding her eyes from even peeking sideways at him as he waded back into the shallows and slid his damp shirt back on. He tried to be quick so that she wouldn't turn back around prematurely and see his eager tool twixt his legs. His breeches were back in place to contain the beast and he was lacing up his second boot when he caught her head turning to the left.

"Unless you'd rather not be privy to a man doing up his boots, you can look now," he called.

She was tactful enough to pause a moment longer on the pretense of appearing ladylike but he knew she was waiting just in case he misinformed her purposely to pull another blush from within her. He took pleasure in her hesitation, her confusion as to how she should compose herself around him.

"How is your wound?" she asked, taking interest in his fingers weaving knots into his laces to keep his boots high.

"Hurts more now than it did before you let your maester scrape away at it. Tried to burn me, if I recall correctly." He did remember telling her that he would accept no form of treatment that involved the use of fire but even if she had passed the sentiment on to the maester, the old man hadn't heeded her and tried to bamboozle Sandor into drinking milk of the poppy to allow him to burn away the rotten flesh.

"I did tell him no fire," said the little bird apologetically. "But I should have overseen his work to ensure that he didn't—"

"He didn't. Would've killed him if he had."

"If you recall all of that, what don't you remember?"

"Before that. I want to know how I got to that room."

The little bird fiddled with a silver trout ring on her left hand's small finger before answering. "I took you there. You were far too drunk to walk and I didn't know where your chambers were, so I gave you a new room."

That much appeared to be true, but had she found him wandering aimlessly about the castle and took pity on him, or had he come to her? And if it was the latter, he must have said something quite forward for her to be this uncomfortable in his presence after how at ease she had been during supper.

He never got the chance to investigate further, however, for at that moment Lord Varys snuck up on them in his silk robes and slippers looking like he was about to dive into the pool himself. Sandor gave an inward groan for as quick to wit the little bald man was, he played the game of lords and ladies well and used copious amounts of flattery and Sandor had to exercise caution to not gag every time he listened to the man. Bowing to the little bird and giving Sandor an acknowledging nod, he said, "Queen Daenerys has called a meeting of the not-so-small war council and requests your presence. She sent a squire to escort you, but I intercepted the boy solely to have the opportunity to visit the godswood where they said you had gone. The past few days have not left me much time to see the true beauties of Winterfell and I confess myself impressed by the age of the place. History has been made in these woods many times over. But the true beauty is in the daughters of Winterfell itself."

"You are too kind, Lord Varys. Shall we go, then?"

Offering out his arm, the eunich beckoned the little bird follow him and in turn, she bade Sandor follow, though he couldn't imagine why.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Sansa, but is Sandor Clegane now a member of the war council?" asked Varys with some puzzlement.

"He is. As of last night when I heard him discussing battle strategies that I thought we might find useful. He has been in many battles and served under the Lannisters for a fair portion of his life. His knowledge might prove to be useful."

Sandor definitely did not remember discussing battle tactics with the little bird, but the meaningful look she gave him now behind Varys's back suggested that he play along, so he did. Varys, however, looked less than convinced.

The war council was held in the library but the stench of the dead lingered here as well. The better-to-do's and well-off's crowded around a table laden with maps and House sigil blocks, moving them about and discussing strategies and Sandor took no part in it, lingering by the window to watch the snowfall. The Dragon Queen, Jon Snow, the Imp, Varys, and their various subjects and advisors argued back and forth about the best course of action. The little bird lent her voice and her sister chimed in as well while their crippled brother stared dead-pan off into space, occasionally coming to long enough to focus on one person gathered around the table as if reading their history in their eyes.

Sandor had heard of this boy's power, how he called himself the Three-Eyed-Raven, whatever the hells that meant, but by word of mouth, he knew a person's past, knew every whim and thought they ever felt. He had given evidence against Petyr Baelish and the slippery bastard had met his end that way. He wasn't a boy to be caught alone with if all of that was true and so Sandor gave himself a reminder to not let himself be cornered by the cripple.

He might have still been in the godswood, wading the length of the pool. He might have been trying to pull memories of the night prior back into the forefront of his mind. Or he might have been scratching his arse and gnawing on a pig's foot behind the kitchens. Anything but this dull proceeding of high lords and supposedly wizened individuals debating whether or not they should rally their forces against King's Landing or wait out the winter up North.

"The men need time to mend. Not one of them escaped unscathed from the battle. Some suffered only flesh wounds, some lost limbs and other precious body parts," said the little bird. "In any case, this is not the army to pit against Cersei's, not in the state they're in. They must have time to recuperate."

"And how long do you propose we give them?" asked the Dragon Queen.

"At the very least, enough time for them to seal up their wounds before you send them into combat against trained soldiers with minds of their own instead of the undead rabble they just fought," said the little bird crisply. "They're no use to you if they die on the march or before they reach King's Landing."

"I do not have time to wait for Cersei to think up new ways of shooting my dragons out of the sky."

"That's all she can think up because we know the other defenses she'll use to protect the city. Let her sit within the Red Keep and dread the day we show up at her gates, but her men are in peak fighting condition, her army backed by the Golden Company and Euron Greyjoy's fleet. We have little more than her own numbers and nearly all of them are wounded. The Iron Throne isn't going anywhere and neither is Cersei, so we _do_ have time to spare to allow our troops to lick their wounds."

Sandor smiled where no one could see him. What a fierce little tongue his little bird had developed in their time apart. It used to be that every word out of her mouth was empty and frivolous, a perfectly recited fib to protect herself but now she was verbally sparring with the likes of Tyrion Lannister and this Dragon Queen who had quite the eloquent and cast-iron tongue of her own.

"So your plan is to have us sit around Winterfell in the meantime, crowding up your halls and emptying your larders?"

"We lost half of our forces in the battle. There are half as many mouths to feed. And you are welcome to have your men sit by in the cold, but reconstruction on Winterfell is necessary, so our taskmasters will be seeing to it that the stronghold of the North is rebuilt."

"I see; the men are not fit enough to fight, but they are fit enough to rebuild your castle."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Sandor, having heard enough of this Targaryen woman acting like the soldiers were disposable pawns that could heal on command to fight her war for her.

All heads turned to him and put him in a very bright, unwanted center of attention. He crossed his arms defensively and stood up, but stayed against the windowsill as they regarded him, some with interest and others with puzzlement as to why he was in the room to begin with.

"You have something to say, ser?" asked the Dragon Queen with a dangerous arch of her eyebrow.

Oh, he had several things to say but only a few that he could if he wanted to keep his head. The little bird and her brother might let him slide by without being courteous, but this woman and her dragons were of a different sort and as miserable of a head it was, he wanted to keep it.

"I'm not a knight, Your Grace, but all this twiddle-twaddle is best left for private conversations, not war councils. None of us are going anywhere when our stitches are fresh and our blood is still watering the grass beneath the snow. I can still smell the corpses we burned, or can't any of you? If you tell the men to march, they will, and they'll die and there's nothing else to be said about it. I have a claim to that because I'm one of the unlucky bastards who bled, as is your knight Ser Jorah, and if I remember right, I had to lug him inside the castle when he couldn't walk himself. He certainly wouldn't survive the march and a boat wouldn't do him much good either."

Jorah Mormont was here now, though he sat on a bench, holding his stomach and looking quite queasy at the moment, which lent aid to Sandor's claim that he wouldn't survive the march to King's Landing.

"Ser Jorah survived the battle thanks to the quick work of Maester Wolkan and your actions, but—"

"Not looking too good, is he? And he was one of the lucky ones. There's others hurt worse than him and they'll pick up their swords and lances to fight and die for you, but all they'll end up doing is dying. They wouldn't ask you for a year to heal, Your Grace, but they would ask for enough time to do you justice on the field. Not a one of them could give you that right now. If you stood in front of the gates of King's Landing right this second against Cersei's army, she'd flatten you like a dung beetle underfoot. And now that the Night King is dead, I can say that corpses don't win wars anymore."

Looking past the Dragon Queen, he saw the little bird hide a smirk on his behalf.

"You've fought in many wars, ser?" asked the Targaryen woman.

"I'm no ser, but I've fought in one, Your Grace; the one that happened a few nights ago. I didn't stay long enough where I was before to become a part of the war there. But I've been fighting longer than I haven't been and I've lived in the barracks with all of those who lick their wounds."

"If you came from King's Landing, how do you find yourself here fighting for me?"

_Well, I don't fight for you, now, do I?_

"I just ended up here, not like Jaime Lannister who chose to come here. I went beyond the Wall to bring back a wight, I went back to King's Landing to show Cersei that same bloody wight, and then I came back here. The Northerners are the only ones who don't want to kill me, so I stayed."

"And why would Cersei want to kill you?"

"As I explained to you last night, Your Grace, he left Cersei's son to die in the Blackwater," said the little bird. "He was less than a sworn shield to them, just a wall of meat to protect Joffrey, and he had had enough of the Lannisters. His decision put him on the path which resulted in the survival of House Stark, and for that, I have pardoned him of any affiliation with the Lannisters, as you have pardoned Lord Tyrion and Ser Jaime."

The Dragon Queen spared a scathing look for the Lady of Winterfell before returning her attention to Sandor.

"It would appear that you have gone where you will and forsaken your vows to House Lannister, ser."

_If I have to tell you one more bleeding time that I'm not a ser—_

"Aye."

"Then tell me; whom do you serve?"

_Not you._

"Until we burned the last of the dead, I served the living, Your Grace."

He knew that wasn't an answer and that she wanted to hear him swear fealty to House Targaryen, but she would be sorely disappointed. Sandor surrendered all notions to serving noble houses when he forsook Joffrey.

"What do they call you?"

"They call me whatever comes to mind, Your Grace."

Mormont spoke for him now without cause to. "His name is Sandor Clegane, my queen. And he's saved my life more than once. Gruff he may be, but he fights for the winning side, as do we all. And he's a proven soldier who knows the needs of the many far better than we ever could."

"It would be in all of our best interests to hold here until travel is an obtainable thing," said the Imp. "As Lady Stark said, Cersei isn't going anywhere."

"And we're too far inland for her to launch a naval assault from Euron Greyjoy," agreed Jon Snow. "Let them have a month."

Overruled by her council, the Dragon Queen surrendered her plans in favor of her wounded army and dismissed them all. Sandor was the first one out the door, but he hadn't made it far when he was called back by the Imp.

"Rousing proclamation in there, Clegane," he observed. "Though I must admit that I didn't know politics intrigued you enough to attend a private war council."

"If I wasn't there, you'd all be heading South this very moment," said Sandor coldly.

"Don't you mean _us_ all? You are a part of this as well," the Imp corrected.

"Not that I'm aware. I traveled with the Brotherhood Without Banners, so I guess that makes me a bastard freedman. I don't serve any house."

"Not even the Starks?"

"Not even."

The Imp knew something he wasn't telling but the little bastard wouldn't say a word further about it, instead rearing the conversation to a subject Sandor was even less eager to talk about than where his loyalties lie.

"Was that you I heard screaming at some ungodsly hour this morning?"

"Might've been, depends on what you mean by screaming."

"It wasn't a pleasurable sort of screaming."

"That was me, then. And never mind you why."

He made his exit through the back end of the library but was cut off somehow by the little bird who knew her way around the castle and knew its back entrances better than he ever could. She was grinning in a secretive sort of way, her smile wry and playful.

"That is why I wanted you on the council."

"Because I scolded the Dragon Queen like a child when she started to throw a bloody tantrum?"

"Because you supported me."

"I supported the soldiers that're out there bleeding in the snow."

"Which was my suggestion, but coming from your mouth, I don't think she expected someone to be so blunt with her and she certainly wasn't prepared for it. You caught her off guard and that gave the rest of the council time to counter her."

"Congratulations to all of you, then."

"Sandor, about last night—"

Oh, so they'd finally arrived at that, had they? Was she going to regale him with the notorious deeds he had done, or was this about how she had had to stretch herself over him to keep him from bringing Maester Wolkan to an untimely end as the man worked to purify Sandor's infected skin?

"I wish we had not argued, and I apologize for the way our conversation in the Great Hall ended."

Caught in obliviousness, Sandor couldn't recall the argument he had had with the little bird at first and had to retrace his steps back to what had come before the wine. He had started drinking to numb himself to the disappointment of not receiving what he had wanted from her. She had not given it to him even though she was presented with the opportunity. They had argued because she was too frightened still by the harm in telling the truth.

He decided to continue to feign ignorance on that front. "Truth be told, I don't remember arguing last night, little bird, but whatever sins you committed, I'm sure the gods will forgive you."

"Don't be so certain that it was I who sinned," she responded, watching him closely for reaction.

_Shit._ _What _have _you done, you blundering oaf of a whoreson?_

Their deserted corridor did not remain so any longer, for Varys and Ser Davos Seaworth came idling by, watching their exchange with curiosity.

"If that's all then, m'lady," said Sandor, disliking how those words tasted on his tongue.

"I—"

Sandor bowed his head to her, something he had not done in years and it felt as unnatural now as it did then.

He swiped a heel of bread and a water pouch from the kitchens and set himself up in the courtyard to watch the Unsullied shift debris into carts from the battle damage. The curtain wall was in ruins with one section completely flattened, leaving another teetering unsteadily. It would need to be knocked down and then rebuilt, for it was too precarious to continue with the rebuilding process with it still standing.

"She's a big fucker, isn't she?" asked Tormund Giantsbane, plopping down next to him. "The dead dragon landed on her like she was a tower of eggs."

The dead dragon had been hauled out by a team of fifty horses and burned several times over since fire did not penetrate its thick, scaly hide on one go. It had done devastation to the courtyard which looked an even sorrier sight in the daytime. The little bird had not lied when she claimed that Winterfell needed the attention of the survivors, but the Unsullied were only doing what they had been ordered to; none of them knew the first thing about wall construction and reinforcement. They didn't know how to lay the mortar and layer the bricks and stones that would—

_You do. You know how._

The little bird wanted her castle rebuilt, Sandor knew how to do it, and she would thank him for it if he did. He was raised on the knowledge of a basic trade after his brother burned his face. His father insisted that he educate himself in work that did not involve sword fighting in case Sandor grew into adulthood as a disappointment and if he did, he would still be good for something. As a stone mason's apprentice, he had the means to make Winterfell stand at her former glory.

Under the pretense of working on the little bird's orders, he recruited both Northerners and Unsullied to help him in his task. The ruins were shifted away and recut into new slabs to be used. Wildlings set out into the woods to cut timbers for extra support. Sandor did not dictate, but helped with the heavy labor to avoid having his helpers desert or worse, go to the little bird and ask for a new taskmaster.

They had put in almost four days of hard work when the little bird came to him on her own, looking surlier than he would have expected, given that this was her castle they were rebuilding.

Shading her eyes against the midday light, she noted their progress and then rounded on Sandor. "I never gave the orders to begin construction on the wall. Who assigned you to the task of master builder?"

"I did, or were you planning on waiting until your month's respite was up to start repairs in the hopes that it'll buy you more time from the Dragon Queen?"

"You are three days past the removal of the infection from your bloodstream and in no fit condition to—"

"I'll decide what I'm in fit condition to do," he said curtly, cutting her off. If she was going to be ungrateful solely because he didn't ask her permission to begin the project, that was her choice, but he didn't have to listen to her pretend to have concern for him.

"Be it on your own head, then," she said loftily and strode off.

"I knew you had something for gingers, Clegane," said Tormund, nudging Sandor in the ribs. "You get your sad eyes from looking after her."

_She's a redhead_.

"Fuck off, wildling."

"She's a pretty thing, mayhaps a bit young for you, but she has the fire in her. You'd be a whoreson to let her slip away."

"Will you fuck _off_?"

Sandor seized a wheelbarrow and went to empty its contents into the growing pile of debris. He pulled the cork from a water pouch, spat it out, and took a swill of the stuff to rinse the dust from his mouth. Wiping the excess from his lips, he could still smell the little bird's pleasant mixture of scents on him and the sudden realization of what he had done hit him like a spiked glove punch to the gut.

He had kissed her. Her discomfort in the godswood upon seeing him, her claim that she was not the one who had committed a sin before the gods—she was wary of him now because he had taken liberties with her. The finer details were lost to him but from what he could pull from the haze of drunken memory, he had found her sometime in the night and admitted his longing for her. He couldn't recall her verbal response, if she had had any, but the tiny whimper of surprise, the softness to her thin lips, the reluctant craving for more (though he might have imagined that last part) stood out quite clearly in his memory.

And what's more, she had let him. She didn't shove him away or ask him to stop. She had let him touch her in a way that no man should unless he be wed to her. Perhaps she had forgiven him due to his intoxication, but somehow, he didn't think she minded too terribly anyway. For one, she had taken no action against him after the fact and also, she had invited him into the war council.

Was it in her best interest to pretend that it had not happened, or was she waiting for Sandor to remember and approach her on his own once again? He wasn't stupid enough to hope for that outcome, not after he had been the one to initiate everything because she couldn't summon the courage to do it on her own. He didn't want it if she would remain passive about it. He wanted all of her, willing.

He returned to his work, thinking up mad plots on how to get her alone and force her true intentions out of her. She would have to tell him sooner or later and he would have the truth from her before he left for King's Landing, or not at all, though if he received it and it was what he wanted to hear, it might just be enough to make him forget that long, irredeemable road of vengeance. Was she enough to turn him from that path he had marked for himself as a child? Could she be what ripped that stabbing pain from his heart and mind, what freed him from the shadow that the Mountain cast on him all of his life?

She was watching him from the walkway, he knew. He always knew when he was being watched, for it sent a prickle up his nape every time, but unlike those others who could only gawk at his face, he knew she was watching him, lost in thought as he was. He decided to catch her in the act and see how she responded to it: with grace or guilt.

Straightening his back, he pivoted in the mud and lifted his gaze to where she stood. She was taken aback slightly, but she didn't look away, considering him with no telltale signs of anything. It was a game of who would look away first now that he had challenged her. He always won this game because of his mangled facial flesh, but she didn't fear that anymore, so he was interested to see the outcome of this battle.

_I know what I did, little bird, and I don't regret it._

He willed that she could hear his thoughts and perhaps she did, for she took one last lingering look and fiddled with the wrist clasps of her gloves before stepping back and walking away.

"She's a true match for you, Clegane," said Tormund with a wicked chuckle. "The way she looks at you is the way I looked at Brienne, my beautiful big woman before the dead took her."

Considering that hanging might be a fair price to pay for smacking Tormund over the head with his spade, Sandor moved off to another section of the courtyard. He didn't want the little bird's glances his way to be compared to Tormund in any way, shape, or form, and if he had to listen to Tormund talk about it again, he would gladly walk to the gallows just for shutting the wildling up.


	5. Chapter 5: What is Becoming of a Lady

**SANSA**

"Son of a whore, pull your head out of your arse!"

Such lovely words to hear echoing up from the courtyard where the Hound was berating Podrick Payne for upsetting a cart full of new materials from Winter Town. Though a seasoned warrior he may now be, Podrick was still woefully accident-prone and Sansa pitied the squire as he fumbled to undo his mistake with the Hound standing over him shouting. All of them were quite small to the sight as Sansa watched them from the broken tower.

She had come up here to seek a few moments silence from the bustle of the grounds but sound carried and if anything, she heard everything tenfold from up here. At the sill, she found a quarter of a broken candle, the remnants of the stick she had set out in a desperate call for help during Ramsay's reign. Help had come, but in the form of Theon first and foremost, not Brienne. The candle was a reminder of both Ramsay and Theon and she wanted to keep it, but to do so would to give reminder to the horrors Ramsay had inflicted upon her. The less she had to deal with his memory, the faster she could put him behind her.

Looking down on the scene of devastation below her, she tossed the candle out into it and didn't watch where it fell, taking to the stairs. She found that Podrick had not finished getting an earful from the Hound and decided to go to his rescue. The young man was struggling to lift a large wooden plank back into place and after watching him make a fool of himself for quite some time, the Hound lifted it in one hand and tossed it back into the cart.

"You're about as useful as a goblet of water during a forest fire, boy. Knock over another cart and I'll use you to fill the mortar between the bricks."

"And not everyone responds so well to negative criticism for a small mishap," said Sansa. "Podrick, would you be so kind as to ready my horse? I wish to go riding before dark."

"Yes, m'lady," said Podrick eagerly and hurried off.

The Hound set about to replacing the rest of the planks, ignoring Sansa and she had to place her foot on one to get him to stop.

"You ought to show him more kindness, and not just him," she said.

"Boy's used to unkind words if he squired for Brienne of Fucking Tarth," said the Hound, tugging impatiently at the plank in suggestion that Sansa remove her boot.

"And the wall won't be built any quicker with you screaming at him."

"No, but it'll make me feel better."

Sansa took the waterskin from the front of the cart and offered it out to him. He snatched it up from her and took a swig, dabbing at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.

"You can't build this wall if you scare away all your helpers," Sansa reasoned.

"I can, but it'll take twice the time."

"Would you please stop arguing with me?"

The Hound tossed the waterskin back into the cart and nudged her foot off of the plank with his own to heft it up onto his shoulder. "Fine, then. I'll offer you some advice instead: steer clear of that wall, little bird. The foundation is unsteady after the dead dragon landed on it."

Seeing that he was in no mood to have a civil conversation with her, Sansa stalked off, inspecting another wagon nearby, as she was curious to its contents. Inside she found only blood-stained brick pieces, set to be broken down and disposed of as a tribute to the dead, for it was not right to build anew with the blood of the fallen. The same way that she had tried to strip every trace of the Greyjoy and Bolton occupation of Winterfell from its stones, whoever had ordered that the bloodied bricks be removed altogether did not wish to dwell in the past and it certainly hadn't been the Hound who ordered such a thing to be done.

She had seen no one else working with him besides Podrick out here on the grounds. Northmen and Unsullied were the only ones recruited to assist in the rebuilding process and they mostly shifted piles from one place to another. It could have been Jon who found this place to be home as much as she did, or perhaps Arya if she had a mind to come out from the armory. It certainly wasn't Bran who would have found such an act as trivial now that he was lost half the time in memories of past lives that were not his.

As she contemplated, she picked up one brick end and saw the deep purplish-red splatter now several days old. She wondered whose blood it was…

"The wall!" shouted a voice.

Sansa let her head fall back to see the remaining unsteady tower of stone and timbers toppling...and she stood in its shadow. She heard crashing which drowned out all else and saw Jon running for her, shoving Unsullied aside, shouting her name. Behind him, the Hound dropped his current load and looked on, stricken as if he had seen a ghost before he too started in her direction, but they would not get to her in time. She dropped down beside the wagon and threw herself underneath it, covering her head and shrieking as the world fell upon her.

/ /

Death was dark, silent, and painful, pressing down on her right leg. She tried to roll onto her side, but whatever was crushing her leg prevented her from moving. Her lungs took in great gulps of dust, gagging her to the point of bringing blood out with every cough. It stung her eyes until she cried tears made of mud. So, not dead, but close to it. Feeling her way about in the darkness, she found that the wagon had saved her but the bulk of the collapsed wall had landed on the timber that held her down. In any case, the wagon had held up extraordinarily well and she wanted to thank the wainwright that had constructed this particular cart and knight him.

She lay on her stomach, thinking of Jon and the Hound and how both had come for her, but had no such wagon to shield them if they were in the wall's path as it fell. Was either of them dead now because of her stupidity? If she was pulled from the rubble only to find the crushed bodies of either of them-

Light poured in to her protective niche, blinding her. She heard an enormous straining grunt and her eyes began to adjust to the midday sunlight peeking through the clouds. The timber above her came free, lifted by the only man in Winterfell large enough to move it on his own. His face appeared, sweat beading across his forehead which told her that he had been sifting through the debris for some time. He spotted her and the hardened lines around his eyes softened.

"She's here!" he shouted. "She's alive!" He lowered his voice, watching her for signs of life besides her straining eyes. "You are alive, aren't you, little bird?"

"Yes," she breathed.

"Then crawl to me. I can't fit down there."

She could just as easily crawl as break off her arm and throw it at him, but the distance to him was only a few feet and if she couldn't make that, what good was she? She could manage this. She had leaped from the walls into the snow and survived the fall; this was nothing in comparison. Sinking her teeth into her lip, she pulled herself forward on her stomach, clawing at the mud with her fingertips. Pain lanced through her leg, stopping her halfway to her destination and causing her to press her face into the muck to swallow the scream building in her midsection.

Another inch forward upset something vital in her knee and she yelped in aggravation at her own weakness. It was idiocy on her part that had landed her here and it would be weakness that prevented her from crawling to the Hound. All of her lessons she had learned from Cersei, from Littlefinger amounted to nothing if there was no one to listen to her. They had taught her how to survive people, how to survive enemies who dueled with words. They had taught her how to counter battles with insightful strategy, even if she wasn't trained in military tactics. Nothing they said could have prepared her for dealing with armies of wights or damnable wall and the pain of having it fall on her.

"You're not dead, girl. Crawling to me won't kill you either, now do it," barked the Hound.

_Not dead yet, but the pain will surely kill me. I can't do it._

Sansa looked up to him, blinking more tears from her eyes. She wanted to tell him that it hurt too much, to claim that she couldn't stand any more of it and that she wasn't able to do what he commanded of her.

"Don't look at me like that, keep going," he said sharply, not giving her the words of comfort she so wanted right now.

"I can't—"

"Then die in there, because no one can get to you. You're the only one who can get you out so do it, or don't. I can only stand here and shout at you."

What a way to die. There were others who knew she was alive but if she gave up now and chose to stay beneath the wreckage until she choked to death on her own disappointing breath, they would remember her as the lady who was good for wielding a silver tongue and little else.

"You going to let a wall get the best of you, little bird?"

He almost sounded like he was mocking her to be deliberately cruel, but he wouldn't do that to her. He was purposely make her angry; anger fueled adrenaline and she needed that more than courage right now.

"Are you only good for dying, girl?"

Sansa shouted at him, a noise and nothing more, but a sound other than pain nonetheless. She pulled her good knee in to her chest and used it to help drag herself forward, keeping her eyes on the Hound for motivation, to get close enough to hit him for calling her worthless.

_It's not intentional. He's giving you the means to help yourself._

She was going to try and knock out his teeth.

_He's doing what he can for you_.

She made it to just below the opening, seizing up in search of breath.

The Hound reached in, tucking one arm around the front of her, but she didn't care that his fingers grazed her breasts and dug into the side of one as they fastened under her armpit and began to lift. If it had been agony to crawl to him, it was torture to be lifted out. She whimpered and cried out, for he was not gentle in pulling her from the rubble, but he couldn't be, not when time was of the essence. No sooner had her broken leg come free that the hole she had been pulled from collapsed and she heard the wagon remains splitting. The sound was nearly as deafening as the falling wall had been and as Sansa attempted to cover her ears, she accidentally smacked the Hound in the nose with her elbow.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized once she could hear herself speak but he only gave a rather dramatic sigh as he tilted his head back and sniffed up any blood that might have been trickling out from his nostril.

"Told you not to go near the wall, didn't I? Maybe one of these days when I tell you something, you'll listen," he said gruffly. "All you Starks would live longer if you'd listen to me."

"Sansa!" called Jon, stumbling over stone and wood to reach her. He grasped her face and kissed her brow as the Hound held her in his arms like she was the girl he had just as easily lifted and thrown over his shoulder after the mob came for her. "Are you alright?"

"'Course she's not alright, you twat," snapped the Hound. "She just had a wall fucking fall on her."

Normally this would be cause to chastise him for speaking in such a manner to a lord and if had been anyone else but Jon, the Hound might have earned himself a flogging, but Jon never cared much about his own titles and he didn't seem to care at all in light of the situation. He assessed the damage done, testing Sansa's limbs and looking for punctures.

"Broken leg, some debris embedded in your arm and neck. I'll take you to Maester Wolkan—"

"I'll do the carrying. I'm the only one big enough to not put her through the mill just getting her there," said the Hound. "You Starks find trouble like you're starved for it. Imagine surviving the greatest battle known to mankind just to die a few days later from a fucking wall."

"Then take her to her room and I'll fetch the maester. And be careful with her."

"No, I had a mind to drag her through the mud behind me," said the Hound.

He held her broken leg aloft so as not to jostle it and she wrapped her arm around his neck, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment at the proximity of a man unwed to her. The two of them commanded the attention of everyone they passed from outside in, but both of them were used to being stared at for undignified reasons. The Hound set his back to her chamber door and kicked it open with his heel, turning sideways to get through the doorway and then lowering her onto her bed. He stood over her, crossing his arms with a look of parental disappointment.

"Always the flair for the dramatic, eh, little bird? Can't go anywhere without getting yourself into trouble."

"I didn't ask for that wall to fall on me," said Sansa indignantly. She lifted her skirts slightly to have a look at the damage to her leg, but when she saw what could only be bone sticking out from her knee, she dropped the material to hide it, choking back a sob of revulsion. Was the damage so extensive that she might never walk again? Would she be confined to a wheeled chair like Bran the rest of her life? What a spectacle they would be, the Starks: a bastard, two cripples, and an assassin who could wear anyone's face as her own.

"Don't be afraid of a bit of blood and bone, girl, that's what you're made of," said the Hound.

"Tell me, how am I supposed to heal when I can see the white of my own bone sticking out of my leg?" demanded Sansa, reaching for her chamber pot in case she needed it.

"I had more than that sticking out of my leg after your Brienne of Tarth had her way with me and I'm walking just fine," said the Hound.

Sansa hated admitting this to him, but his attempts at consoling her weren't working. "But you're…you're _you_."

He didn't have to ask what she meant, but he did chuckle. He ripped off a section of his shirt and dabbed at the corner of her mouth where she must have been bleeding, though she couldn't feel any pain lesser than the excruciating pain in her leg.

"Steer clear of the walls, little bird."

He was as gentle now as he had been the first time he cleaned her lip of blood except this time he had already been much more intimate with her leading up to this lip dabbing and it made her uncomfortable at his closeness. One of his fingers brushed against her lip but if he did that intentionally or not, he made no indication that he noticed, concentrating on his work until he had cleared all of the blood from her face.

When he made to draw back, she rested her fingers carefully on his forearm.

"I know you don't want to hear it—"

"Don't say it, then. If it isn't going to come out naturally and you know I won't like it, cork it, seal it, and don't spew it out."

"You want it to come out naturally? Fine, then. Stop interrupting me like a grumpy old shit and let me say my piece."

She had impressed him with her use of profanity and weaseled another smile out of him.

"Thank you, Sandor, for pulling me from the wreckage. I didn't ignore your advice; it just didn't occur to me that a wall could land on me."

"I'll give you some insightful information, little bird, walls fall down and if you see one standing on its own, steer clear of it." He tucked the piece of his shirt away and started off.

"Where are you going?" Sansa found herself asking even though she knew he had no good reason to stay with her now that he had completed his task in carrying her up here. She was reluctant to see him leave, though she couldn't say why.

"There's still another wall to be built," he told her indifferently.

"You can rest, you know. There's other men to build it."

"That's the sort of thinking you high-borns take advantage of. There's always someone else to do your job for you, but for the rest of us, there's only us and if we don't do the job, no one will."

_You high-borns_. Already, he was distancing himself from her in addressing her as something unobtainable and out of comprehension to the commoners, only he had a notable house name, so he wasn't as common as he made himself out to be. He had always had distaste for knights and lords, but did he think so lowly of her that he would degrade her birthright just to prove a point to her? She never knew what to expect from him anymore, how often his mood would sway based off of how she spoke to him but his response to her comment showed true disgust for everything those of noble birth stood for.

His deflected answer to Daenerys's question about which queen he swore fealty to did not go unnoticed by Sansa. He had avoided directly pledging himself to House Targaryen because he wanted nothing to do with kingdoms. He had served a cruel king for too long and the impatient way he had addressed Daenerys suggested that he thought her no better than Cersei or her opponent's predecessors. Sansa supported his distrust of the new queen, but found herself to be more than slightly wounded that he directed his derision toward Sansa herself.

"Is that all you think I've become? Some high-born?" she asked him in a delicate tone.

"If you only see those beneath you as the next person who can do mundane tasks for you, aye."

Mundane tasks such as brushing her own hair, drawing a bath for herself, saddling her own horse. The sort of tasks she was well adjusted to having other people do for her. The sort of tasks the Hound had done for himself his entire life despite being born to a lord. He had chosen that path for himself, though, so how could he blame Sansa for not doing the same?

"If that's all, then, I have work to do."

It wasn't all, but he showed himself out all the same, leaving her feeling far worse off than she had at any point under the rubble. She mulled over his words as Maester Wolkan set her leg and assured her that though a nasty break in several places, she would regain the use of it if she allowed it to heal properly which meant no horseback riding and no leisurely strolls in the godswood or along the ramparts. She would be confined to her room unless she could find some other way of transporting herself around on one leg and though the maester offered to fashion her a crutch, it was not becoming of a lady to be seen hobbling about as if she had been born club-footed.

_Not becoming of a lady. _Was this not the very thing the Hound had scolded her on? She would rather the people not see her using a crutch to assist her in walking about her own castle and preferred to be waited on hand and foot as she healed, more than she already was attended to by her handmaiden? No, she would not do as the maester said; she would let her people see her in her broken state as she continued to make her rounds and walk among the people who had fought for her.

By the time the maester had finished with her, the castle was preparing for supper and though Sansa could take it privately in her room, she wanted to be seen, suddenly very keen on not acting the part of a high-born. She changed out of her dusty, bloodied dress and exchanged it for another, though it took some time to manage it all on her own and she could not do up the laces on the back by herself. She was still attempting to tie them herself by glancing over her shoulder into her looking glass when Jon came to her with a vial, one of the last in the maester's stores.

"Maester Wolkan said that this has to last for the month until the supply wagons can make it through the snows to Winter Town with more. He said one drop a day should be enough to make the pain manageable and—why are you looking like you're about to go have supper with the rest of us?"

"Because I am about to go have supper with the rest of you. I'll not sit in here like I carry the plague. I will attend breakfast and supper regularly with my people. Now, help me finish the laces, I can't reach them."

"Sansa, the maester said—"

"I know what he said; I was there," said Sansa shortly. "As the Lady of Winterfell, I am obligated to not show weakness to my people and let them see me every day. How can I expect them to continue to serve me if I don't make the effort to see them in return?"

Jon would understand her plight better than anyone else, for he had been in this very position in bending the knee to Daenerys. He gave her a reluctant smile and finished up the ties, securing the dress in place.

"If you're going to be making the long walk to the Great Hall on top of your other duties as Wardeness of the North, you'll need to save your strength when you can. Wait here a moment and I'll be back."

"No, I need to start making my way down there to arrive before everyone else. I want them to see me, but not watch me hobble in."

"I'll not be two minutes, I promise. Wait here."

Sansa had to take a seat on the edge of her bed after only a moment or two, for she could not stand to stay upright for long on her own. She took the pipette from the vial Jon had brought her and filled it with the precise amount prescribed by the maester before popping into the back of her mouth. She hoped this would last long enough to get her through supper without having to be lugged out, for she didn't fancy the stories that would come the next morning about how she was so weak that she couldn't even sit through a meal without complaining of pain.

When she heard Jon returning, she tried to stand back up, but felt lightheaded and had to retake her seat almost immediately. Jon came in with the Hound flanking him and Sansa groaned inwardly.

"Sandor Clegane has graciously agreed to attend you in helping you get to the Great Hall and other places while his duties permit him to—"

"Oh, shove it, Snow, there was nothing gracious about it. I'm the only one in the whole castle that can do it, like you said, so if I say no, I look like a damn wanker. But I want to make it clear to you and her that I'm not like the simpleton you told me carried your little brother around. I'm not waiting around, sitting on my arse until she needs to go somewhere."

"I don't need him carrying me, Jon," said Sansa, hating that it had to be the Hound of all people who had come back to see her. He would know why she was insisting on dining with her people and would see it as a poor attempt at countering his earlier claim that she was nothing but noble blood.

"Unless you plan on borrowing your brother's chair with wheels, I'm going to carry you," said the Hound.

"It's humiliating, being carted around like a child—"

"It's what your brother lived with for years, isn't it? And he, being the Lord of Winterfell at the time, carried around like a babe still at the breast. You've suffered worse humiliations, and I'm not going to carry you like that. Give me your hands."

He held out his hands palm up to her and she glared at them as if they had done her a personal wrong. She knew that he was enjoying watching her discomfort at having to accept his help after their most recent conversation. He cocked an eyebrow at her in a direct challenge and she responded in taking both of his hands and trying to pinch his rough skin.

"Stand against me," he said, helping maneuver Sansa into line beside him to where her right hip met the middle of his injured thigh, but if it hurt to have her pressed against him, he was being silent on the matter. "Lift up your broken leg, step only with your good one and lean on me when you need to. And you go on ahead," he told Jon. "Make sure the hall's empty."

Jon left them and the Hound secured his hand around her waist. It was large enough that he could have crushed part of her pelvis if he had a mind to but instead, he was able to hold her up with that touch alone and she tucked her broken leg up to rest between his and her other. With her own hand in his right, she stepped forward and he took a step with her, leading her in a circle around the room to help her settle in and adjust to the rhythm he set. When she felt confident in her stride, she nodded at the door and he led her out.

On her own with the use of both legs, it would have taken her perhaps three minutes to reach the Great Hall. On her own with a crutch, it would have taken the better part of an hour. With the Hound, they made it in just under three minutes and though he didn't rush her, the effort used up most of the energy she had set aside to endure supper. The Great Hall was empty, for which she was grateful, for as the Hound lowered her into her seat at the high table, she couldn't hold back a small yip of pain.

"Eat fast and tell everyone else sitting up here to do the same so you can get it over with," the Hound suggested.

"I'm not going to gorge myself just to save face when—"

She stopped, seeing too late that she was concerning herself with the opinions of other people and what they might think of a woman who ate too quickly.

"Suit yourself, little bird."

"Where are you going?"

"Like I said; I'm not sitting around for you to be done. I'm going to double back around and come in through the main entry like everyone else and sit out there with everyone else."

Everyone else, referring to those not high-born. He truly did delight in reminding her of that today. She now thoroughly regretted her decision to sup with the occupants of the castle, for it meant that she would have to act as her title dictated all while being aware of how the Hound and others must be regarding her. She watched Jon, Daenerys, and Tyrion take their places at the table with her, but none of them said a word to her until the hall began to fill, masking their conversation.

Tyrion leaned sideways in his chair and took her hand. "Are you alright? I didn't see, I only heard."

"A broken leg, among a few other minor injuries, but I'll mend well enough," said Sansa, grateful for the concern in his voice.

"I believe it was Sandor Clegane who pulled you out before everything collapsed in entirety?"

"He did." Sansa let her eyes flicker to the back corner of the room where the Hound had reluctantly taken up a seat and was joined by Tormund Giantsbane, Ser Jaime Lannister, and Podrick. He caught her eye, let it flicker toward Tyrion, and then looked away.

"Good to have a man of that size on our side otherwise we might have had to have the dragons dig you out."

"Yes, I was very fortunate."

Sansa had to endure more of the same sort of condolences and expressions of relief at her safety from Lord Varys and the surviving lords and ladies who remained at Winterfell to wait out the snows for their return to their own strongholds. Daenerys was the last to approach her and by then Sansa had been served a half leg of venison and eaten none of it. She clenched her napkin in her lap, tearing into the fabric with her fingernails to hold back the moan of pain that longed to escape her lips.

Daenerys lowered herself, hiding behind Jon's chair to not be seen in a position unworthy of her stature. It was a rare thing for the queen to come down to the level of those beneath her, but the position suited her. She had a look of genuine concern on her porcelain features, but that Sansa didn't trust any more than she trusted the queen it belonged to.

"Jon told me. How long until you can walk on your own?"

"A handful of months, more if I don't allow myself to rest it properly," answered Sansa shortly. "So I would wager a year or more because I don't have the luxury of time to be whiling away the days in my chambers. Once the men are ready and rested enough to march, I will be going as originally planned."

"Is that wise?"

"Perhaps not, but it is imperative. I want to be there when you execute Cersei and I will suffer every broken bone in my body if I have to just to witness that. My brother Bran will hold Winterfell in my stead."

She could see that the queen was not pleased with Sansa's decision to accompany the army to King's Landing, but she approved of Sansa's determination to be present for Cersei's downfall. This common ground made it so that it did not seem at all forced when Daenerys took one of Sansa's hands and whispered, "I know it must be painful and that there is not much milk of the poppy left to sustain you, but if there is anything I can do to help you bear the pain, promise me that you will let me know."

"Gladly, Your Grace, I thank you."

With the expected greetings and formalities over, Sansa was finally able to take a bite of her meal but found the meat almost impossible to chew through. She had to cut it into even smaller bites than the ones she was used to and as she worked at it to make it a size that her mouth could manage, she heard various bits of conversation drift up to her at the high table. Talk of women the men had left back home, discussion of Gendry Baratheon as the new lord of Storm's End, predictions on how much longer the snow would last. Jokes, jests, mean and good-natured both. False anger, boisterous laughs. And the elegant but carrying voice of Jaime Lannister boasting to Podrick about some tourney or another that he had won in an apparent game of who could regale the best victory ever witnessed. It was obviously a tale he had told several times over, for he spewed it out as if he were reciting it and Podrick dutifully pretended to be engrossed while Tormund looked helplessly lost at Ser Jaime's eloquent way of speaking.

It was the Hound, however, who cut Ser Jaime short just shy of the climactic ending. "Oh, will you shut the hell up? After a battle with the dead, any tourney you rode in is about as courageous as bashing a fool over the head with a frying pan and it proves your cock size just as much."

Ser Jaime had perfected his sister's well-known concealing smirk that suggested anger boiling just below the surface. He turned in his seat to face the Hound, taking in the sudden audience they had as those around them grew quiet to hear his response.

"You may have a point, Clegane. Fighting an army of wights is much more impressive than any battle that history can tell us about, that much is true. Both of us fought in that battle, but I seem to recall that you didn't so much as lead the retreat as full on ran like you had a fire lit under your arse and I didn't see you again until after the battle was over. Frightened of a little fire when it lit up our skirts, were we?"

By now half of the hall had gone silent to listen, though several men broke out into laughter at Ser Jaime's insult. It was not a pleasant sound, but one that Sansa unfortunately knew all too well, for Joffrey had often insisted that the court join him in his own laughter at her misfortunes during her time spent as his prisoner. It was cruel laughter, made at another's humiliation, and the Hound had often tried to silence it among the other Kingsguard with a glare whenever the laughter was made toward her. She felt obligated to come to his rescue now, for she had a suspicion that he was far more used to it than she, but only because he had had to deal with it for much longer.

"Let him defend himself in his own fight," said Tyrion's voice in her ear.

"The North doesn't stand for lesser men to mock the people responsible for their survival and he's been mocked all his life. I can do something to stop it now," said Sansa.

"And how do you think he will react in having to have a woman come to his rescue, the Lady of Winterfell herself to get commoners to back off? He's so bull-headed that insults bounce right off of him, so don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that any of this is harming his dignity."

The men continued to laugh at him but the Hound had no reaction to them, eyes prowling around the hall and making the men uncomfortable in their laughter once he settled on them. He did not threaten them, but his look was enough for them to quail under his gaze.

Ser Jaime clinked his mug against the Hound's. "I suppose it runs in your family, though, the blood of a dog. Loyal to a fault bordering on stupidity, blindly following orders to please your master, fearful of fire. Once a dog, always a dog, though why the dog chose to serve the wolf instead of the lion is an interesting story."

"The story there is that the boy king was a bigger bitch than his mother," said the Hound vehemently.

Lowering his mug with deliberate slowness, Ser Jaime wiped any traces of his smirk away . "Careful now, dog. I might have fought for the North on the battlefield against the dead and I may fight for the Dragon Queen now, but that is still my sister you're referring to and even as we march to war against her, I will not hear a word spoken afoul of her."

"Not even after she put a bounty on your head for leaving her bed?"

"That is slander, dog."

"It's not slander if it's common knowledge. The two of you have fucked all your life and she squeezed out three children from it. You had two good children, kind children who were raised right—at least by their mother since you weren't around much for that. And then there was the cunt king, a little demon of a boy if I ever saw one. Must've been something in the breast milk."

"Not another word, or I'll have your tongue," promised Ser Jaime.

"You'd have to be able to reach it first."

"You Southerners bicker like wildling children fighting over who made the better snowball," observed Tormund, breaking through the tension as only wildlings could. "I don't know your sister, this Queen Cersei, Jaime Lannister, but if the whole country thinks she's a bitch except you, then she probably is one. Defend her all you like, but you can't cut out the tongue of every man who calls her one."

"Most women rulers are bitches," said a new voice to the argument, a knight bearing the sigil of House Karstark on his sleeve.

"I don't believe we've met, ser…?" said Ser Jaime, peering at the knight in question.

"Ser Merrick Ward. I served Lord Karstark when he answered the Young Wolf's call to arms and I disassociated his sigil with the Young Wolf's army after he beheaded our lord at the behest of his bitch mother."

Now Sansa had heard enough. She made to stand, but remembered that she couldn't without help, and so Jon beat her to defending her mother's honor and memory.

"You'll guard your tongue, Ser Merrick," he said, silencing what little prattle remained in the hall as he stood up. "Catelyn Stark was not my mother, but she took me into this home and raised five good children, including my brother Robb Stark. She didn't order Robb to behead your lord. As I recall by those alive who bore witness, Lord Karstark murdered two lesser Lannister boys in retribution for the sons he lost during the war. He struck down two boys in their sleep since they were obviously a great threat to him and it gave him pleasure to slit their throats as they lay defenseless. Robb beheaded him for that, and for treason, for going against his wishes. Now tell me, who was the one at fault here?"

"Lord Karstark demanded justice for his sons, aye, and it would have been justice to kill Jaime Lannister for killing one of those sons, but the Stark bitch let the Kingslayer loose and your brother took his mother's side to no one's surprise."

"If you harbor so much love for your lost lord, why don't you strike Ser Jaime down now when he sits but three seats from you?" suggested Jon.

"He's not the one giving orders, is he? I respect any man who comes from such nobility, from the queen's own bed just to fight with an army that didn't even match half of the dead one. But we fought that war, we won, and now we're expected to go off to another just so some other woman can sit the Iron Throne. Cersei or this new Dragon Queen, it'll be a woman and women don't know the field of battle. They don't know it, they don't belong there, yet they act like because they've lost a son or have some pretty little daughter held as a comfortable hostage, they suddenly have a right to undermine the true king. You bent the knee to a woman and left a woman in your place when you went."

"May I remind you, ser, that a woman is the reason you draw breath at this very moment to offer us insult?" said Sansa, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. "Without Queen Daenerys's armies and her dragons, you would be a corpse marching south to King's Landing with no mind of your own, worse than dead. No man has ever accomplished what she has. She is attempting to end the war that men started."

"Preach all you like about your savior queen, my lady, but you're no more of a leader than your bitch mother was. You think because you called upon the Knights of the Vale to help you retake this castle from your deceased lord husband Ramsay Bolton that you can lay claim to it? You got armies of men to fight for you, men who belonged to your supporter Lord Petyr Baelish and when he displeased you, you had him murdered in this very hall. I've seen the ways you women work and you'll get every last one of us killed fighting your battles for you and letting you reap the rewards."

"If you'd like to continue speaking, you may reap the rewards of your words by taking up a cell, Ser Merrick," said Jon.

"Is that a threat for trying to make my people see reason? A man tells the truth and is punished for it? Is that what the North has become under the Starks and the women they sleep with?"

Sansa took in every face, every expression of the men before her. She could not read any of them. Did they agree with Ser Merrick? None came to his defense. Did they disagree? None of them spoke out against him.

"Take him to a cell," said Jon, and the Stark guardsmen moved in, but Ser Merrick leaped to his feet, drawing steel in one clean movement.

"You'll not behead me like you did my lord, bastard. You, your whore queen and your whore sister can go to all seven hells."

"You've turned a dinner among friends into something ugly, ser. Drop your weapon and your life will be spared, but strike out at any man in this hall, and this night shall be your last. It is for the respect I hold for every man and woman who fought in the Great Battle that you are being given this chance."

If the man truly was a misogynistic fool, he would gladly die for the chance to call out Daenerys and Sansa for being women in a man's world, but how stupid did a man have to be to die for the chance to call women bitches to their face? If he loved life so dearly, why would he say such horrible things now, after living through the worst beasts ever to exist in this world? Sansa did not understand his motivation at all and a man she could not understand was a dangerous one at that. Perhaps his mind had finally snapped and his speech was one of lunacy and desperation, or perhaps he was really an idiot who happened upon enough luck to see him through the War of the Five Kings as well as the Great War. Either way, Sansa had a suspicion that he would not be laying down his weapon.

"You think those women on either side of you are going to let you retain what power you've built for yourself, Jon Snow?" asked Merrick. "The Dragon Queen will take you as her mistress. Your sister—Bolton more than Stark now—will bunt you out into the cold. You should've let Ramsay Bolton keep her and sworn allegiance to him. He knew how to treat women like your sister. Fuck them into silence."

The Hound knocked over his table in his haste to stand, moving between the path leading up to the high table and Ser Merrick. He was not the only one to do so, but he was the first as Ser Jaime, Tormund, and Podrick joined him. The rest of the hall rose as one, facing Ser Merrick with bare hands.

A bold man, a stupid man, Ser Merrick lunged and Sansa heard herself scream in alarm. The Hound sidestepped Ser Merrick's attack, seized him by the back of his tunic, and threw him bodily over several tables where he crashed into a stool and the poor men still sitting on it. The guards detained him, disarmed him, and brought him before Jon.

"Take him outside," said Jon, reaching for his sword beside his chair. He shook his head in an almost nonexistent fashion at Sansa and followed the guard out of the hall. The rest of the hall's occupants filed out after him, leaving only Sansa, Daenerys, Tyrion, Ser Jorah, and the Hound. They all looked at Sansa's leg rather uncomfortably before Daenerys rose with an apologetic glance Sansa's way and left to attend the execution. Ser Jorah limped after her and Tyrion made the comment that Sansa did not have to be present at the beheading, but that she could still observe from the window if she found it necessary.

Rooted to her seat at the abrupt, hurtful way the knight had turned on them all and what could have driven him to such madness, Sansa wished only for more milk of the poppy. She gripped her armrests and sat forward, biting down on the inside of her lip. She heard the heavy footfalls behind her, then beside her, and felt his large hand at her waist, pulling her upright.

"No, I don't want to," she protested as the Hound led her to the doorway that would give them a vantage point above the courtyard from one of Winterfell's many balconies.

"You're going to," he told her sternly.

"Why, because it's becoming of a lady to attend the execution her lord ordered?" she asked waspishly.

"No, because you deserve to see the execution of the fucker who wanted to rape you and kill you," he growled.

"He didn't want to-?"

"Didn't he? What else do you think 'fuck them into silence' means, girl? He wanted to, he would have, given the chance, and you're going to watch him die for it."

Hidden by an overhang of compacted straw, Sansa let the Hound carry her out into the snow where the once-merry feasters were gathered in silence as Stark guardsmen set a block down before Ser Merrick and forced him to his knees.

Jon unsheathed Longclaw, looking to Daenerys for permission to commit to the act. She gave it.

"Ser Merrick Ward, in the name of Queen Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons, I Jon Snow, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North sentence you to die."

"Do I get the right of last words?" asked Ser Merrrick.

"You've said quite enough," said Jon, and brought the sword down.

The Hound had taken most of her weight as she stood by and watched the courtyard empty, as was her duty to be one of the last to leave. He didn't wait for her to be ready to return to her chambers but swept her up in his arms to carry her in the very manner she did not want to be carried even though she knew that she could not have walked at all if she had tried. As before, he set her down on her bed and then made a hasty retreat without a word. With his hand upon the brass knob, he stopped as there came a knock from the other side. He stepped back to allow the knocker entry and despite Sansa's exhaustion, she was surprised to find Ser Jorah on the threshold.

"Forgive me the lateness of the hour, my lady," said the knight with a bow of his head.

"Did Her Grace send you?" asked Sansa.

"No, my lady, I come of my own accord to give you this." He held out a vial similar to the one the maester had rationed for her. "Milk of the poppy. I was given some for my wounds and foolishly already took half of it, but we are in short supply of it and those vital to the war must heal as quickly as possible. Please, accept this."

It was such an unexpected gift and a selfless one that Sansa had no words at first as Ser Jorah placed it in her hands.

"Awfully noble of you, but she's got a broken leg and you almost had your guts cut out. I think you're entitled to keep it," said the Hound with what sounded like annoyance.

"I am, as I am entitled to give it away at my discretion. I am choosing to give it to Lady Sansa."

Nodding her thanks, Sansa reached for Ser Jorah's hand and squeezed it. "I thank you, ser, more than I can fully express."

"My lady." Ser Jorah showed himself out and Sansa clutched his gift to her breast. What great self-restraint she needed to have to not knock back the entire thing now as her leg pained her so. When she noticed that the Hound had not yet gone, she waited for him to speak but by the way he was grinding his upper teeth into his bottom lip, she could tell that he wasn't trusting himself to say anything.

"You don't approve of his gift?" she prompted.

"Oh, it's a fine gift, very appropriate for a dumb bastard that needs it more than you do. Chivalrous and stupid, like all the rest of those cunts."

Sansa's order stopped him from stomping off as was his custom when he had run out of insults to spew. "Stop, Sandor, I have not dismissed you yet."

"Then fucking dismiss me, I have shit to do besides being your human crutch," he snapped.

"You volunteered."

"I was coerced by your brother, girl, don't make me out like something I'm not. I'm not like your noble Ser Jorah who gives up a pain suppressant because it's the right thing to do instead of keeping it for himself because he needs it more."

"You won't call me by my name; you never have," said Sansa hastily changing the course of the exchange to breach the subject that seemed to be the center of her problems with this man. "You've never addressed me as your lady when not in the presence of others, either. You won't call anyone but the people you despise by their name. I call you by your name as friends would and you'll accept no titles, so I call you that when we are in the presence of others as well. Are you so afraid of becoming attached to someone that you can't even give them the courtesy of speaking their name to their face?"

"Courtesy is wasted on me, _m'lady_, and attachment is one thing that's sure to get you and that attachment killed. Now _dismiss _me, or I'll do it myself without your leave."

Sansa chewed up the words and spat them out with as much venom as she could. "Get out."

He did, but he did not slam the door. He closed it softly and let it latch, which frustrated her even more. She would have preferred it if he had shouted at her, knocked something over, broken the door, but it was the same type of subdued anger, quiet and fierce, measured, and tired. Tired of explaining how the world worked to her even after she had experienced it. He was still trying to protect her, but his patience was wearing thin and she had to find a way to prove that she had learned from her experiences or risk losing the only man who seemed capable of protecting her now.


	6. Chapter 6: Always a Threat

**SANSA**

She had to think about why she was in such a foul mood the following morning when she woke to heavy snowfall. Taking a measured two drops from her vial and Ser Jorah's, she positioned her bedside chair in front of her, using it as support by dragging it along the floor in front of her to help her hop over to the window. Two feet of white had fallen overnight and more was coming down hard, but as she suspected, the Hound was back at it on reconstruction of the wall and he was the only one braving the snow with a fine dusting of it atop his head, giving the impression that he suffered from severe dandruff.

He lay bricks in place by slamming each one down as if as punishment for a crime they did not commit. His movements were heavy, labored, and furious, and Sansa knew why. He worked so vigorously that steam was beginning to rise from his entire body as if he were being slowly roasted on a spit. Sansa's handmaiden, Eira, came to help dress her, but Sansa sent her away in favor of watching the Hound continue his work. When breakfast arrived and Eira set it on Sansa's bed, she left it untouched. How long she stood surveying the hulk of a man rebuilding her castle's wall, she didn't know, but the pain in her leg let her know that it could no longer go untreated by the time the noonday meal replaced her uneaten breakfast. She saw Arya emerging from the armory and speaking to the Hound, offering him a wineskin which he must have drained half of before he tossed it back at her and continued his work. Arya appeared to ask him a question that rattled him, for he pointed away and made a menacing step inward to make her leave, which she did, but not out of fear of him.

Sansa had begun to taste her food and finally set her bad leg back up on the bed when Arya knocked and let herself in, hair still damp from the snow.

"I see you've finally decided to come speak to me," said Sansa. "Have you been sulking in the armory this whole time?"

"I've been about and around," answered her sister, helping herself to some of Sansa's lamb stew. "Mostly training, but I've seen you being carried around by him once or twice. Neither of you look very happy about it."

"Is that what he told you?"

"No, that's what I told him. He said it wasn't any of my business and to leave him be, but I came up here to ask for your permission to make him stop or he's going to work himself to death. I don't know what's got his balls in a knot, but he looks a right mess down there. Tell me I have leave to make him rest for the day."

"You seem concerned for him."

"I am, as are you. He's not one to tell us why he's in pain or why he's angry, but we can see it, and we're the only ones who will do something about it."

The thought saddened Sansa. That had been the case with her as well in King's Landing. Only the Hound seemed to care for her well-being until Tyrion arrived, the only one who was able to do anything about it, when he could. It was only fair that Sansa returned the favor now.

"Tell him that I wish to go to the godswood."

"It's snowing—"

"I know, but he won't come just because I asked him to. He'll come if he thinks I need his help. I'll get him to rest."

"He won't, not if he's mad at you," observed Arya.

"Why would he be angry with me?" asked Sansa a little too obviously. She knew good and well why he was angry with her, but she had to feign ignorance as often as she could. She didn't need the whole castle knowing that she was having a row with her…friend.

Arya left and Sansa took a chunk of bread in her hands, squishing and tearing it until it was nothing but crumbs clasped between her palms as she heard thunderous footfalls heading up her corridor. He didn't even knock when he came in but threw the door open and stomped over to her bedside, reaching for her waist to pull her to her feet.

"No, wait, I don't need your help."

"Rubbish, just stand up, girl," he said. The snow had soaked through his hair and clothes and Sansa caught the musty scent of mildew mixed with body odor.

"No, I meant that I had Arya send you to me because I wished to speak to you. I don't have need to go to the godswood. I knew you wouldn't come if you thought I meant to speak privately with you."

The Hound scowled at her with his hands still on her waist, taking in her appearance of still being in her bedclothes underneath her robe. "You're a clever little piece of work, aren't you?"

"I want you to rest from the wall for the remainder of the day. You've no one to help you, and you'll injure yourself if you continue on at the pace you've been going. You haven't eaten and hardly taken a moment to pause all morning."

"Been watching me, have you?" he asked shrewdly.

"Yes, because I've nowhere else to go and nothing to do. I'm not hungry at all, so I want you to eat now." She pulled the tray closer to her in suggestion as he finally let go of her waist.

He needed to eat, but was too proud to do so in front of her after their argument last night.

"Please, eat something. If you insist on working at the wall, you need the energy to make up for it. It'll go to waste if you don't."

"Then feed it to the wolf."

"Sandor—"

"Don't try this again. I don't sit in ladies' chambers and make polite conversation over tea and cakes."

Sansa pushed aside her tray, swung her legs off of the bed, and stood up on her good leg, preparing to go after him, but her bad leg would not even take her weight for a second and she fell hard on both knees, swallowing her sob of pain. She felt his hands on her as he lifted her without effort and placed her back on the bed.

"That was stupid, even for you," he said.

"Not as stupid as trying to kill yourself by overworking your body just to prove a point," she shot back.

It was the wrong thing to say, for he left without another word and Sansa was no better off in her endeavors to get him to meet her on level ground than she had been before. If he wanted to be stubborn about it, she wasn't going to stop him, for two could play at this game, the only question was how long both of them were committed to playing it.

The snow lasted another two days, burying the castle in drifts over Sansa's head. The Hound carved out paths for himself in the snow as he continued to work alone, visible at all times from Sansa's window, but she didn't call him back to her room to avoid another row over gods-knew-what. She couldn't tell any more if she made him angry, or if he was just naturally a difficult person to deal with.

He escorted her to the Great Hall for supper, but otherwise she stayed in her room, going over routes to King's Landing and marking the choke points where Cersei might place Lannister soldiers to delay them. She was no great strategist, but she did have Jon and Daenerys's plans to go off of as she revisited them hour after hour, wondering how they would take the capital and avoid a massacre at the same time, for Cersei would surely sacrifice her people if it meant holding back the invading forces that Daenerys planned to bring up to her doorstep.

A weak appearance of the sun through the clouds heartened Sansa after the dreary days she had spent cooped up in her room with only maps to keep her company. She opened her window and called out to the Hound on that third morning, catching him slightly off guard as he hefted his spade as if he expected an attack. Requesting that he help her to the godswood for some fresh air, she showed him that she was properly dressed this time and would be waiting for him outside her door, hoping that he would not suspect another peace-offering trap.

The godswood could have been a forest beyond the Wall for all of its silence from daily castle life. She had not visited this place as often as she should have, not for prayer, but for its solitude. She had meant to spend an hour or two here the day of the war council, but stumbling upon a naked Hound had driven all thoughts of such things from her mind when she saw his heavily scarred torso sticking out of the water. Her imagination had gotten the better of her as she imagined what might happen if he stood up and she had done everything she could to deter him from attempting it.

The crispness of the new day awoke her dulled senses and she could almost forget that they were at war, that they might die before it was all over. Nothing quite breathed new life into a Stark like the air after a snow storm and she welcomed it with a wide grin that must have been puzzling to the Hound, for he cleared his throat when she tilted her head back in hopes of catching a ray or two of the flickering sunlight. She still held onto him, her posture relaxing in his grip, but he obviously wanted to get back to his work.

"If you had me drag you all the way out here just to breathe, I'm going to drop you," he told her.

He had been out in the storm, not shut up inside, so of course he would not feel the invigorating effect all of this had on her, but she hoped he would appreciate its effect on her and was in the process of telling him so when she heard the screech of the dragons high above. Through the thick bramble of branches overhead, she saw them circling the castle, on the hunt for the breakfast the Dothraki were charged with setting out for them.

She admired the way the sun reflected off of the delicate patterns of their rippling scales, but imagining the rough texture of those scales made her skin crawl. She had no idea what a dragon felt like, had no desire to know it, and as much as she was somewhat fascinated by them, she wanted them out of the North as quickly as possible. They belonged to their mother, the queen, and none of them were suited for the harsh conditions the North offered.

Squinting, she managed to make out a white head atop one of the dragons as it dipped in and out of the clouds and she shook her head. "I don't understand how she can do it. What do you hold on to?"

"One of those spiked ridges along its back," answered the Hound, seeing where she was looking.

"And you speak with experience?" asked Sansa jestingly.

"Aye, I've been on the big black and red one."

"You've been on it?" repeated Sansa in disbelief. How could one manage to keep quiet about riding a dragon when there were only two left in the world and there would never be another two since both of these were males? "You were on it while it was flying? Do you mean to say that you've ridden a dragon?"

"Don't mean to say it; am saying it. I was on that thing beyond the Wall. Most uncomfortable, terrifying half hour of my life, flying back to East Watch. Haven't been able to sit down properly in ages."

Feeling that this was not an appropriate subject to pursue, Sansa returned to watching the dragons but her casual gazing was brought short as the Hound suddenly grabbed her, wheeling her around to shove her behind him and using his body to completely block her from view of—someone.

"This was something I certainly never expected to see, old friend. We'd heard it back in King's Landing that you died just north of the Eyrie but here you are, uglier than ever."

Sansa recognized the low-born accent, the black humor. She peered around the Hound to get a solid look at Ser Bronn of the Blackwater who wielded what had once been Joffrey's crossbow. The King had threatened her with a bolt to the belly before he had her beaten and Tyrion had come to her aid along with Bronn (after the latter had been bought with generous coin), yet the same crossbow from which he had helped to defend her was now being pointed at her by him.

"Slippery little bastard that you are, you're always up for a good fight," said the Hound. "So you'll put that crossbow down and match blades with me if you aim to try and take her."

The existing argument between he and Sansa might as well not have existed in that moment with how his free hand was clutching her so tightly against him from behind that she was sure that she would bruise. His other hand kept hold of his sword pommel, though he dared not draw it while Bronn had the crossbow on him.

"Her?" laughed Bronn. "Cersei didn't send me for her, though she'd thank me if I cut the lady's throat. The queen doesn't like her much after what happened to her cunt son, but she didn't ask for Stark blood. Bit stupid, really since the Starks hold Winterfell again and Jon Snow, being a Stark by blood, is fucking the Dragon Queen so the Starks are more of a threat than the men she did send me to kill. Come to think of it, she might even give me more than she promised if I brought her back Sansa Stark."

"And what do you think the Dragon Queen would give me if I brought her the head of the man sent to assassinate her allies?" countered the Hound. "Fuck right off, you little prick, or I'll cut that off too so I can wear it as a necklace."

"I thought we were friends? Didn't I save your stupid arse on the Blackwater when you looked a burning man in the face and froze and nearly made water in your trousers? You aren't a man to leave a debt unpaid."

"Then the Seven can send me to hells when the Stranger takes me because I don't owe you shit."

Cersei had sent Bronn to kill someone, kill men, but not Sansa? That seemed an impetuous move, even for her. Bronn was known for his shadow work, so if he was one of her best assassins, why hadn't she ordered him to come for Sansa or even Daenerys herself? And why had Bronn revealed himself to them instead of stabbing the Hound in the back and taking Sansa anyway for the additional prize he could earn for himself?

"I came for the Lannister boys, seen them around? Taller fucker with a golden hand and a little twat, might come up to your knees."

"If you came for them, you'd have found them without us telling you," said Sansa, keeping wary of the bolt as she peered around the Hound's side. "Why are you really here?"

"I don't like Cersei," answered Bronn simply. "She's a stone-cold cunt and gave me the option of killing her brothers for riches or refusing and dying where I stood. If I go back without proof, she'd have me killed, but why would I be stupid enough to do that? Cersei's a living bitch until she dies and she's going to be a dead bitch by the time your Dragon Queen is through with her. One dragon or three, they're still dragons and I don't fancy me chances with not a one of them. But if I tell Cersei to fuck off, she'll send others to kill me and if I kill the Lannister men, I won't make it to the Kingsroad with me head. I can't win unless m'lady vouches for me."

It was Sansa's turn to laugh, though it came out short and brittle. "And why would I vouch for you? You might once have served Lord Tyrion, but you did it for coin, not out of the goodness of your heart. You come to me now and threaten me with the weapon you once saw Joffrey torment me with—"

"It wasn't meant for you; it's for him," said Bronn with a nod at the Hound. "I figured it wouldn't hurt to keep me exits covered in case he charged me. I just needed to talk to you and plead me case, but he was in the way and I wasn't about to waltz up to you without arming meself."

"You should have left the crossbow back in King's Landing because I'm going to shove those bolts so far up your arse—" began the Hound, but Sansa cut him short.

"A threat against a friend of the Starks is a threat against the Starks, ser, and you've done both. If you wish to keep your head, you had best sail for Essos because the North and the South will be coming for you now."

Bronn took a step back, his fingers twitching near the trigger that would release the bolt straight into the Hound who had no armor on. Sansa put her hand against the Hound's arm to give him silent warning that he should speak less and not tempt Bronn into shooting him for amusement.

"I'm not looking to hurt you, m'lady. Never came to hurt anyone, but I knew coming here that everyone who saw me face would know that I was sent by the one Lannister that still stands in the South. I took that chance because I'm a survivor and I know a lost cause when I see one. I allied meself with the Lannisters since before the war began and that includes your husband. I fought the Battle of the Goldroad, same as Jaime Lannister, but I heard he's earned himself a pardon. Does that only work if you're high-born because if so, I'll excuse meself now."

"I'll catch up to you before you reach the gates," promised the Hound.

"You want the forgiveness of the North for your time serving the Lannisters?" asked Sansa in disbelief.

"Aye, and that shouldn't be hard to believe when the North forgave two Lannisters themselves despite them _being _Lannisters, so forgiving someone who followed their orders shouldn't be asking too much. I never hurt you, did I? Wasn't I always kind to you, tortured little thing you were?"

Always. He had shown her kindness even when the situation did not call for it, though he never made those good intentions clear in case Cersei or Joffrey order that he desist. During the ceremonial exchanging of vows in the Great Sept of Baelor, he had been amongst the witnesses to Sansa and Tyrion's marriage and given her a small smile of encouragement, for he knew Tyrion well and was assuring her that her lord husband would be a good one. He had often escorted her throughout the castle and made little quips at Tyrion's expense that had weaseled a laugh or two out of her. It was not enough for Sansa to turn her trust over to him, but it was enough to imprison him for questioning and gather judgment from others before she made the call to end his life.

"Lower your weapon, ser, and show me that you fight for the North. Throw your blades away and swear allegiance to House Stark and you will be treated fairly before being brought to trial."

This was not the answer he had been hoping for in his less-than-convincing half-grimace. "Somehow, I don't think other members of the council will be as eager to trust me."

"I never said I trusted you, but if you lay down your arms, you will not be harmed, you have my word. If you run, you will be hunted. If you harm anyone in your attempt to flee, you will be killed on sight. If you fire at me, you will die where you stand."

Bronn gave her a nod of approval, though he didn't lower his weapon. Instead he gave the Hound an all-knowing smirk as the Hound advanced. "Quite the she-wolf, isn't she? She yours, then?"

"You mind your tongue, you little shit," snapped the Hound.

"So she isn't, but she could be. You'd like her to be, eh?"

The Hound went for his sword but Sansa grabbed as much of the back of his tunic as she could to pull on him. "No, don't," she said desperately.

"No disrespect meant for the lady, I'm just pointing out facts, old boy," said Bronn. "She was a pretty thing in King's Landing but look at her, a woman now and the Lady of Winterfell. Bet Joffrey would piss himself if he could see her, see his dog bending over backwards for his former betrothed."

"One more word out of you and I'll open you from balls to brain—or whatever's sitting around rattling in your head and what's dangling twixt your legs."

Why was Bronn egging him on so? Was there that much bad blood between them that he couldn't resist? The Hound hated it when people made jests toward him at Sansa's expense and Bronn was using everything in his arsenal to tempt the Hound into action.

"Lower your weapons now, ser," ordered Sansa. "For your sake, please."

And amazingly, incredibly, he did. He set the crossbow on the ground and removed the bolt, then unbuckled his belt and tossed his sword on top of it. His dirk was the last to come free, but it hadn't yet joined the pile when he pointed excitedly at the Hound in recollection.

"I know what it is now. You don't hate me because I'm quick to wit and better looking and all around more fortunate than you. It's because when that little cunt had his Kingsguard stripping her naked in the throne room, you stood there and didn't do shit but Tyrion Lannister comes in like a bloody knight in shining armor with me at his side and the lady looked at us like we were heroes. You wanted her to look at you like that, but I got there first and your jealous cock couldn't handle it."

The Hound left Sansa's side and she fell to her good knee in the snow, shouting for him to stop, but he was deaf to her pleas. The Hound was on Bronn, but the sellsword had kept hold of his dirk in anticipation of such a move. He cut the Hound across the face with it, but for all of his experience, he hadn't expected to be hit with a bull's rage as the Hound fell upon him and broke his nose with a well-placed hit. The dirk had fallen from Bronn's hand as the Hound's own found his throat and began to throttle him.

"Sandor, no!"

Instead of fighting to free himself from the Hound's grasp, Bronn kneed the bigger man in the groin and the Hound drew back to clutch at his crotch. Bronn snatched up his blade again and sank it into Sandor's shin and on the recoil, went for his jugular. A flash of white and then red and Bronn lay shrieking on the ground, dragged about every which way as Ghost ripped into his forearm, thrashing back and forth to make Bronn drop the knife.

"Get 'im off!" shouted Bronn, punching at Ghost's muzzle with his free hand. "I yield, get 'im the fuck off me!"

"Ghost, away," snarled the Hound, and Ghost released Bronn, slinking back on his paws to place himself between the Hound and the sellsword.

The commotion had brought about several guards who ran to Sansa to check her for injuries. She waved them off and instructed them to take Bronn to one of the holding cells and call for the maester to tend to his arm, or what remained of it after Ghost had been at it. She was firm about no further coming to Bronn, for he had suffered enough at Ghost's paws and had it not been for his reckoning with the Hound, he would have surrendered wholeheartedly. When one of the guards asked if the Hound also required tending, Sansa asked only for a small kit with which to treat him herself and the man brought her the needed supplies.

The Hound sat in the snow, holding a pack of the stuff to his facial wound as Ghost licked at his leg, but he didn't seem to notice the wolf at all. Sansa called to him to come to her and he did like a scolded dog, taking his time with his head down, but she couldn't imagine why he would be acting this way when he had done nothing wrong. Unless, he thought she would despise him even more after what Bronn had said to him.

"Sit down, let me clean that," said Sansa, nodding at the sliver of spilling red that stretched from his burned ear to the corner of his mouth.

"It's nothing," he muttered.

"It doesn't look like nothing. You can sit and let me see to that or you can take off your breeches and let me stitch up your leg, but you will let me help you or I will have someone hit you over the head and then you won't be able to resist."

He blinked at her, not even caring to make a joke about being bare from the waist down and it was an indication that he truly was wounded in body and mind, but he sank down onto the enormous boulder her father often sat upon to clean his sword. His hair hung over, covering his injury and that Sansa had to gather up a handful of it, bunch it into a knot, and sling it back over his head. She took a needle and thread from the kit the guard had liberated from Maester Wolkan, but had to stop here as she realized that there was no way to reach the Hound's face if she could not stand. Her only other option was to sit in his lap, which she refused to do.

He seemed to guess her conundrum and stood up, steering her onto the boulder and then kneeling in front of her so that they were still on a level field. She had the gentle, practiced hand of someone who had spent years stitching and sewing with naught else to do as both a young lady of the North and a prisoner of the King. Her lessons with Septa Mordane had taken hours only so she could perfect her craft whereas Arya had been at it for the same time just to get one stitch right. Her time spent doing the same thing was only to avoid Joffrey's wrath until he called for her, so by now she was quite practiced at it.

The Hound hardly winced as she brought the skin together in neat, careful stitches and cleaned his face of any remaining blood. All she could think about was how lucky he had been that Bronn had cut him on his burned side, sparing the wholesome portion of his face, but then she felt disgusted with herself for thinking such a thing. When she had finished, she once again instructed the Hound to sit and roll up one pant leg to expose the damage done to his shin. It was an easier fix than his face, for it was a mere flesh wound, and she made quick work of it before declaring herself done.

Back up the familiar path to her chambers they went, accompanied by Ghost who had since cleaned out his mouth by drinking from a pool of melted snow. The Hound deposited Sansa on her bed and touched a hand to his stitches as the two of them waited for the other to speak.

"You going to execute him?" he asked distantly, sounding as if he didn't care for the answer one way or another.

"Not me personally. I commanded that he be given a fair trial since he all but surrendered."

"He almost took off half of my face. Is that what you call surrendering?"

"I don't excuse his behavior in insulting you, but I fully believe that he intended to yield before Ghost bit him. He had the opportunity to kill me and he didn't, so I will see to it that he is given a chance to defend himself, in respect for his treatment of me during my time in King's Landing. I would have offered you the same courtesy."

"Wouldn't have had to. I'd never come at you with a crossbow. If he stands trial and lives, that'll come back to bite you in the arse, girl, see if it doesn't."

"I'll see that it doesn't," said Sansa crisply, but groaned inwardly when she saw that yet again, he was choosing to leave instead of allowing her to smooth things over and start anew. Somehow, they always ended up here, in a stalemate argument that left both of them feeling unsatisfied and restless.

They were still at odds with each other at supper of the fifth day following Bronn's infiltration, but he was there beside her all the same when it came time for her to return to her chambers, securing his hand at her waist and taking her arm with the strong gentleness he had handled her with every time before. They did not say a word to one another, which reminded Sansa of those terse silences between the two of them when they happened upon each other in the many empty corridors of the Red Keep. And it only now occurred to her that perhaps their unplanned meetings were not coincidence since it had happened so often, which made her all the more angry at him now for deliberately being difficult.

Not but a few moments into their usual walk along the backways to the lord and lady's chamber (now solely referred to as the lady's chamber since Jon took his old room), they were called to a halt by Daenerys who had Ser Jorah walking alongside her at an annoyingly slow pace that Sansa did not want to match.

"Might I walk with you, Lady Sansa? I had hoped to speak more on the matter of this trial for the sellsword that attacked you in the godswood."

"This is not an ideal time, as you can see," said Sansa with frustration, struggling to maintain her grip on the Hound's waist. This was the more dignified way to do things, but with Daenerys and Ser Jorah crowding the corridor as well, she couldn't fall into rhythm with him. She stumbled and slipped several times, clutching onto his leather tunic just before she hit the ground until the Hound swept up her legs over one forearm and placed the other at her back to carry her.

"On the contrary, I find that it is a perfect time to discuss these matters with you while we are not trapped away in a room with only uncomfortable silences as our companions. If you trust your man as I trust mine, we need not fear the distance our words may travel."

"I trust him," said Sansa, for as much as she was in disagreement with the Hound at the moment, the two of them had common ground on distrusting Daenerys and Sansa would not let the queen see the Hound as a threat to be punished or eliminated simply because Sansa did not want to cooperate.

The Hound cocked his eyebrow at her, more as a way of questioning her decision than surprise.

"Good, then if your man agrees to be silent on this matter as I know Ser Jorah will—"

Sansa heard a strangled shout, a clash of steel, and then silence. The same trio of sounds happened again and again until it refused to die out and became the noise of battle—or worse. The Hound set her down, moving with deliberate placement to block the corridor and drawing his sword. Ser Jorah drew his as well with a wince.

"What is it?" asked Sansa.

"Your Grace, take the lady back to her room," said the Hound without turning around to look at them.

"You are not one to be ordering your queen about—"

"Do it now," said the Hound with more urgency in his tone. "And be quick about it."

"What are you doing?" asked Sansa, wishing he would tell her what he suspected might be happening.

"I'm staying right here. Whatever's coming will have to get past me first if they want to get to you two, and my guess is, that's exactly what they want."

"I have the door," said Ser Jorah, though Sansa could see that he was not long for his feet as he had turned a delicate shade of green.

The Hound shook his head with doubtful irritation. "Oh, aye, nothing's getting past you, Mormont. Give your sword to your queen and you go hide in the room with the lady because you're in worse shape than either of 'em."

"Sandor, what's coming for us?" demanded Sansa.

"My guess would be turncloaks," said Ser Jorah.

"Sounds like a mob, though, so you two, clear out now," said the Hound, shooing at Sansa and Daenerys still without looking at them.

"If it's a mob, they'll take you down easily—"

"If it's a mob, they'll take you down far easier because you and I both know what happened the last time we were lost in a mob," said the Hound, turning around now and grabbing Sansa's wrist.

Yes, indeed. Last time she had nearly been raped and since both of them seemed to be thinking it, she could see that he was equally concerned for her as he had been last time.

"Here." The Hound shoved a dagger into Sansa's hands. "Take this, and go to your room. Lock the door, bar it, stay back from it, and do not open it until your brother comes for you. No matter what you hear, you don't open it for anyone but him; not me, not Mormont, no one but your brother, do you understand?"

"And if he never comes?"

"Then take that blade and cut your own throat because you know what'll happen if you don't."

"I will not take the coward's way out," said Daenerys proudly. "I fought the wights when they came on an open, deserted battlefield with only Ser Jorah already wounded by my side."

"If you want to let yourself be raped before you die, that's your choice, but I know it's not hers," said the Hound pointedly with a nod at Sansa. "The wights killed in numbers, but men are harder to put down because they have the wits to outsmart you, so if you'd like to take your chances with them, by all means, stay here."

Daenerys blanched.

"That's what I thought. Now both of you, go!"

Draping Sansa's arm around her shoulders, Daenerys began to walk. She was smaller than Sansa, and so they did not make it very far before the queen began to tire. Ser Jorah had been following behind them, guarding their back, but now he took over for his queen and assisted Sansa the rest of the way. He handed over his own knife to Daenerys without the dire warnings the Hound had given Sansa and then pulled the door shut behind him. Together, Sansa and Daenerys began to drag the lighter bits of her furniture from their places and pile them up before the door. After they had taken every piece but the heavy wooden framework that made up the bed, they gazed upon their poor efforts at a blockade and knew that whatever mob wanted in, it would be coming in.

The sounds of battle did not come from the courtyard, but from within the castle, though Sansa had no way of knowing from which direction. She listened to clash of metal upon metal, of men shouting incoherent vows of vengeance, of men screaming as they died. Gods, how Sansa hated the chaotic noise of battle, how it reminded her of her helpless childhood self that needed rescuing at every turn. Determined that she would not be that vulnerable again, she traded the Hound's dagger between hands, trying to find a comfortable hold on it.

After several long minutes of waiting for the fighting to stop, they heard the shrieks of a man being brutally dispatched not far from the room and they stood up in unison with Sansa using one of the bed posts to hold herself up.

"Hold!" shouted a voice from without, but for the life of her, Sansa could not place it.

A heavy pounding on the thick wood of the door made both of them jump and wield their knives with all the inexperience of green boys.

"M'lady, Your Grace, it's me," said the voice of the Hound, but his pitch was suspiciously higher. "Are you in there?"

Sansa and Daenerys glanced worriedly at each other, but said nothing, placing themselves between the bed and the back wall.

"I'm not asking you to open the door; I just want to know that you're in there," said the Hound's voice again.

Still, they kept silent.

"Seven hells, if one of you doesn't speak up right fucking now, I'll break the door down myself. I know you can fucking hear me—"

"We're here; we're alright," said Sansa.

"Fighting seems to have stopped out here. I'm going to find your brother now, so stay there until I come back."

With all the dim-wittedness of a fool, Sansa hopped across the room, squeezed past the various bits of furniture, and unlocked the door to see the Hound standing there with blood splatters upon both his sword and his face. He had been facing away from her, but now grasped the doorknob, trying to pull it shut again. "Are you daft, girl, I told you not to open the door—"

"No one could force you to do anything at knife point, so I knew it was only you out here."

"You give me more credit than I deserve."

"Close the door, I hear more coming," said Ser Jorah.

The Hound had almost succeeded in pulling the door shut again as their corridor was invaded, not by more turncloaks, but by Bronn, blood-stained sword held quite loosely as he saw the Hound and Ser Jorah guarding the door. He set the sword down at his feet and raised his hands atop his head to show that he was now unarmed.

"How the fuck did you get out?" demanded the Hound.

"Three or four men made it past whatever guards there were down the way. Didn't get much further, thanks to me. Made your life a bit easier since it's a narrow corridor and you've got a big fucking sword to swing around and you," Bronn looked Ser Jorah up and down, "You're one ill-looking fucker."

Ser Jorah dropped his sword at Bronn's feet, covered the distance between them, and had placed a knife to Bronn's throat in the time it took the blade to stop clanking against the stone. "I'm injured, ser, not dead. Keep your hands on your head and press your face into the floor, or I'll give your neck a red smile."

"Leave him be," said Sansa. "My brother will come here of his own accord once the battle is truly over. The three of you, come inside, now."

Shoving Bronn ahead, Ser Jorah made the sellsword kneel beside the window and lay down on the floor with his hands folded over the back of his head. The knight then apologized for his weakness and collapsed at the foot of Sansa's bed where his queen ran to him to check him for injuries, but he had none. He was simply a man still in need of rest for his wounds.

Sansa took the vial he had gifted to her and filled the pipette with a generous dosage, going to his side and bidding him open his mouth. She squeezed out a few precious drops to trickle down his throat.

They were not a part of the waiting game long when someone pounded insistently on the door and Sansa snatched up the Hound's dagger once again in unison with its master facing the door in preparation for another skirmish. Jon's voice called to them and the Hound went to admit him before turning around to see Sansa still in her defensive stance.

He was impressed and he approved of her willingness to defend herself, but he didn't know that even with his presence now, she couldn't let go of the dagger, for her fingers were unwilling to release it. Daenerys returned her borrowed weapon to Ser Jorah, but Sansa couldn't wrench her fingers off of the Hound's dagger handle and looked to him for help. He took hold of the pommel and worked his fingers underneath hers, pulling each one free individually. Sansa expected to hear cracking and see her skin shatter like ice, but her hand came away unscathed and the Hound took his weapon back.

Jon put his arm around her and she was grateful for his warmth, even if he did have blood on the side of his face. Gravely, he spoke to both her and Daenerys as only he could in making the situation sound much worse than she anticipated.

"It's over for now, but we don't know if we got them all. We might never know for sure. The survivors could be biding their time, waiting until we let our guard down to strike again. They might only want to take out one of us and be willing to die for it, which makes them all the more dangerous. Near thirty men who sided with Ser Merrick and we suspected not a one of them. Northerners they may be, but I don't claim to know them well, so I cannot say what they would do for their values. We must be vigilant and prepared. Both of you will keep a guard posted outside each of your rooms, day and night, have an escort with you whenever you leave until we know for sure that we've eliminated the threat. Lord Varys will help us on this front. I'll find him now and tell him that we're in need of his whispering services. In the meantime, Clegane, Ser Jorah, stay with the women until I can send someone to relieve you."

"Get someone to take this sellsword back down to his cell first," said Ser Jorah, kicking at Bronn's side.

"Oi, I'm not hurting anyone, don't be kicking me for laying here like you told me," griped Bronn.

The Hound went to Sansa's cabinet and took the flagon of wine, tipping it to his lips and not pausing for a breath as he drained the entire thing.

Daenerys closed the door behind Jon as he left and bolted it once again. "It won't take long to weed these traitors out. They can't be very smart to attack in such small numbers with no plan other than to get to the two of us and not anticipate our bodyguards. Lord Varys will help us find them soon, and every one of them, the ones who helped them set their plan in motion, the ones who informed them of where we would be during the revolt, the lookouts who let them know the coast was clear to launch the assault, they all will have been Northerners. It wasn't my men. Murder plots and mutiny aren't in the customs of Dothraki or Unsullied."

"No, the Unsullied follow commands blindly and the Dothraki rape their victims first," said Sansa heatedly before she could stop herself. It was by far, one of the boldest things she had said to the new queen but as she had before, she felt safe in saying such a thing because this woman would lose the support of her strongest ally if she murdered her lover's sister.

Ser Jorah glanced between the two women uncomfortably but the Hound had the shadow of a smirk playing around underneath his beard. She certainly was getting all sorts of favorable reactions from him this night, but her moment of snark would not be earning her any such reaction from the queen.

"You have no place to be speaking ill of my people, my men, as if your own were blameless when both served your purpose in defeating the Night King. They fought and died for you. I fought for you, taking up arms during the battle when I had need to. Did you kill a wight during the battle, Lady Sansa?"

"She did," said the Hound, coming to Sansa's rescue as he always did. "The ones in the crypt. It was only the two of us with dragonglass and she did what she could despite never wielding a blade before. But whether or not either of you can fight doesn't matter. Whether it was Northmen or Dothraki that staged the attack doesn't matter. Thrones and titles, none of it is worth a damn to people who can't appreciate you either way. Your Unsullied and Dothraki may be more loyal to you than the Northerners are to the Starks, Your Grace, but they're a small part of the population of Westeros and the people of this country are never happy with who's ruling for long. They're never happy being anything less than someone else and they turn on whoever they want as fast as it pleases them. We've been through three kings, a queen, and four other kings roaming about and none of them lasted because their people weren't happy with them. So it doesn't matter who tried to kill the both of you tonight; someone always will try."

It was not a comforting notion, to know that however much they could get their people to love them, not all of them would, and there would always be those who wished them dead simply because they lived better lives.

Daenerys must have taken the words to heart, for she did not offer Sansa or the Hound a rebuttal, instead welcoming her Unsullied commander, Grey Worm, into the room. Grey Worm spoke in his native tongue to the queen and showed her and Ser Jorah out the door with a disapproving glance over Sansa and the Hound. Three more Unsullied hauled Bronn up off of the floor and he flashed a grin at her as they dragged him away, leaving Sansa alone with the Hound yet again.

"I'll wait for whichever nance your brother sent for you outside," the latter said.

"Sandor, wait," said Sansa. "I know I have no right asking this of you, not after everything you've done for me and how ungrateful I undoubtedly have seemed to you. But I would ask that you stand guard for me. My sworn shield is dead and the only other person I trust is my brother and he can't be at my side while preparing for the march south. I ask for your services."

"Asking?" he repeated.

Was she asking, or ordering? Or perhaps a little bit of both? He would say no if she commanded it, but he would scoff at her for asking. She couldn't win, but she had to try.

"Please, just sit here with me through the night. I know I won't sleep. You need not speak to me, just—"

"I'll stand guard this one night, little bird, but I'm not your sworn shield, and you'd do well to remember it."

He went to meet the guard Jon sent for her and she heard him telling the man to piss off, then waited a few minutes before he came back in, pulled up a stool by the empty hearth, and sat against the wall with his hands tucked into his armpits. Suddenly aware of how ill-suited it was to have asked him to stay the night within her chambers instead of without, Sansa was unprepared for what to do next.

She wrung her hands together, uncertain if it would be inappropriate to ask him to turn away or leave for a moment as she changed into her nightgown, then she came to the conclusion that it was inappropriate to have him in here at all. Sworn shields and guards alike did not linger in the lord or lady's chamber and beside the odd encounter of the man being the lover of his charge, none had ever spent the night within one either. If Lord Varys was to be counted on, there would be rumors come the morning, but after surviving three deadly encounters since the Great War all with the Hound's assistance, Sansa was not inclined to care much at this point. The castle knew that she was being escorted everywhere with his help and that she required him to be close by if she had need of him. Surely, this was no different?

"Your eyes will get stuck like that if you think too hard," he said presently and Sansa realized her eyes had crossed over in concentration.

"I was just—"

"Just going to bed. Sleep, little bird, the danger's passed for tonight."

"I'm not tired."

"And a shit liar. Go to sleep."

She wanted to sleep, but how could she when she knew that there were men who had wanted to kill her, very specifically _her_ because their friend had spoken out against her mother? How could she sleep within her own room in her own castle, surrounded by her own men when such horrid thoughts of betrayal and abandonment clouded her mind? She would find no rest this night—

A raven cawed to greet the dawn and Sansa sat up bolt-right in bed, searching about for the Hound to reassure herself that she was alive and had not been murdered in her sleep.

He was still there, alert and impressive.

"Won't sleep, eh? You nodded off three minutes after I told you to."

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Sansa moved toward him with the help of her bedside chair as before. "My handmaiden is due to arrive soon with breakfast. You may take yours with me, if you'd like, but if you want to go and rest, I'll have a meal sent to your room."

"I swear, girl, if I crawl into bed and some whoreson comes knocking on my door telling me that you need to be carried somewhere—"

"I'll remain here for the day unless I absolutely must in which case, I will use the crutch the maester provided for me."

The sound of chainmail clinking against armor announced the impending arrival of her next guard outside her door and with hardly any time at all to spare, she scraped her chair across the floor to cover the remaining distance between them and strained upward to plant a swift whisper of a kiss on his cheek. She had never seen him at a loss for words, struck dumb by anything she could do or even any act of sadism Joffrey could commit, yet he regarded her now with what she could only describe as terror. He had kissed her under the influence of wine, possibly had no memory of it, but for her to kiss him back as a token of her gratitude, this small gesture of affection had frightened him.

He pulled back from her and shook his head, telling her without words to not do that again and she didn't understand at all. It was perfectly acceptable for him to try and force his tongue down her throat when inebriated, but for her to return the favor in more proper terms was blasphemous?

"Lady Sansa, I am here to stand guard for you," announced a foreign voice, one belonging to a Dothraki bloodrider, sent as a peace offering by Daenerys, or perhaps as a form of salt to pour into her open wound of betrayal.

The Hound took to the voice like it was an escape route, but Sansa snatched up her crutch and beat him to the door, barring his path with her body.

"Sandor—"

"Don't."

"It is only a token of thanks. You don't heed me when I tell you that I am grateful for all you have done for me."

"_Don't, _girl."

"Not even as a form of gratitude to someone I consider a good and loyal friend?"

"I'm not one of your damn knights, girl. I don't accept tokens of affection because all I know how to do is drink, fight, and fuck. I don't make gentle love, I don't accept flittering girlish kisses, and I get fucking upset when people forget that, so don't forget it."

"Sandor, please, don't leave in anger again. Are you not weary from always being at odds with me? I want peace from whatever I've done to upset you."

"If you don't know, peace is definitely not on my agenda for the day."

"What do you want from me?"

"What do you want to hear me ask? Or better yet, what are you afraid I'll ask of you? You think I'll demand that for all the times I've had to drag you out of danger, you should strip your clothes off? You want me to ask you for something you've got no obligation to give me? For as long as I'm in this bloody castle, I just want to be left alone but that's damn near impossible with you needing me for something or another every fucking minute."

"How did a solitary lifestyle suit you last time, Sandor?"

"Suited me well enough."

"You're lying. You were miserable and you have no need to be now. You won't admit that you need help, so do not consider this as help. I want the two of us to know each other well and be friends. I don't have any, and neither do you, so it's as good a place as any to start, don't you think?"

"What I think has never mattered."

"It does to me. I speak to you as Sansa Stark, not the Lady of Winterfell and Wardeness of the North. If you would only look at me and see a woman who wants you to find some small measure of happiness here…"

The Hound traced her jaw line with his thumb, softening for her. "My decision to be happy was taken from me when I was a boy. It's just not an option anymore."

"Mine could have been. You and I had tortured childhoods and worse lives after, but we are both here now, and I don't believe that's by coincidence. I saw you brave the fire in the crypts for me, and not because you were trying to do the noble thing. You have an obsession with it, which tells me that you want to be here for me as I want to be for you. Allow me that, and I promise that I will try to be honest and open with you whenever possible."

He shook his head at her, sad and yearning. "You can't be, little bird. Your world requires you to lie to survive." He reached around her for the door handle, but she pressed her backside into it so that he could not open it. He tugged at the handle and she dug her good heel and crutch into the floor, losing the battle against his strength in a laughable manner.

"I'm not letting you leave," she vowed.

"I could just as easily pick you up with one hand and move you, girl."

"You're welcome to, but I won't let go of you if you try. You and I are going to make peace, or you are not going to leave."

"You're infuriating, you know that?" he growled, but now she knew she had him, for he had moved closer with no signs of touching her.

"You wanted honesty from me, so here is something that will prove my intentions. I did not come to you during the feast just to extend the Starks' gratitude. I came to you because I wanted to, because I was happy to see you, or as happy as one can be to be reunited with someone they hardly know. I don't know much about you, but if I know that you would fall upon your sword for me, I know that there is more to you than you claim there is."

It was not what he wanted, hearing that she was simply happy to see him and that she did not have more to offer, but it was the truth. She had dreamed of him so often, imagined her reunion with him in various ways, and when the time came for that reunion to take place, it did not live up to her expectations, but she was still pleased to see him, see the changes he had been through thanks to Arya that had softened out his hardened edges. Even if her happiness at the sight of him was not what he desired, it was more than what she had offered him before.

Even now, he seemed to doubt her words, and with how close he was, she was fearful that this would lead into another unwanted kiss, but he only looked down on her in search of the truth and when he seemed to realize that she had spoken it to him, his face brightened, however little.

"The truth," he said.

"Yes."

It was not much, but it was all he had ever asked for with her, and if she could give that to him now, their friendship just might stand a very small chance—until they marched off for war.

"It's a start, little bird."


	7. Chapter 7: Sworn Shields and Sellswords

**SANDOR**

Of the two and a quarter dozen men who had staged the attack, five survived and were found guilty of treason with no trial, sentenced to hang, and displayed for any of their possible comrades to see. It was not as brutal of a warning as the Lannisters might have given, but it served its purpose because Lord Varys had no reports on any more whisperings of uprising from any men within the castle.

The five turncloaks hung outside the gates for three days before the Dragon Queen ordered they be cut down and fed to her dragons. And of course Sandor was given that task since the Dothraki were having trouble operating wagons in the snow. Since the dragons did not know Sandor well, Mormont was sent to accompany him, though riding in the back of the wagon with the carcasses was not doing the knight any favors and Sandor heard him emptying his stomach several times during the course of the ride. The dragons saw them coming long before they could get close enough to unload in case the horse bolted so Sandor had to drag each body halfway with Mormont walking alongside him to ensure that the dragons would not do something hasty like eat him.

Sandor was one of the few men alive today who could claim to have ridden a dragon and he wanted to keep those bragging rights to himself if it meant he never had to go near one again. He didn't have anything against magical creatures, for the direwolf seemed to like him well enough, but direwolves didn't spontaneously spit fire and the last time he had been near a dragon, it was too busy incinerating the wights to pay him much attention as he climbed onto its back. Now, both of them were watching him drag their dinner closer but he saw no signs of expression from them other than however the hell a dragon normally looked at people.

He dropped the last of the bodies in the dragon's feast pile and tried not to look like he was walking away too quickly, but Mormont stayed behind and he called for Sandor to wait for him as he held out his hand to the red and black dragon. Sandor didn't care how well Mormont thought the dragons knew him; sticking out your hand to a set of jaws larger than a horse was stupid. And just like a wild animal devouring its prey, Sandor couldn't tear his eyes away in anticipation of what was to happen next. He didn't fancy having to go back to the Targaryn woman and telling her that her beloved knight got cocky with her dragons and would be making an appearance as a pile of shit later on in the day.

Mormont let the dragon come to him, completely unafraid as it blew hot enough steam onto him to melt an inch or two of snow around him. The scaly nostrils flared, sniffing at Mormont's cloak, then the dragon nuzzled against Mormont's hand, its push strong enough to make the knight take an ungainly step back. Sandor could only liken the sound from the dragon's throat as a type of reptilian purring and the thought was ridiculous, but the way its eyelids were fluttering as if it was enjoying Mormont rubbing his hand over its nose suggested that it was indeed happy with Mormont's presence. The greenish-bronze dragon crawled up beside its brother, eager to get some much-needed attention as well and Mormont put out his other hand to oblige it.

_Fucking mad, he is_.

"Clegane, they won't harm you, come introduce yourself properly," Mormont suggested over his shoulder.

"I don't enjoy living, but I'd like to a bit longer, so no," responded Sandor.

The smaller dragon left Mormont and charged Sandor, who almost soiled himself, but it stepped right over him and took advantage of its brother's distraction to help itself to two of the corpses. Its movement caused its brother to realize that it was missing out on a meal and the red and black dragon snarled at the smaller one, resulting in the remaining three carcasses going to the former's share. Sandor tried to sidle around the squabbling beasts with his footfalls muffled in the snow, but the dragons made quick work of their snack and rounded on him so quickly that he lost his balance and fell back into the drifts, staring straight up into four completely blackened eyes.

Mormont didn't call out any words of advice, for which Sandor was determined to haunt the man once he entered the next life as a ghost.

The dragons bore down on him, examining him as if he were some sort of particularly fascinating prey but when several moments had passed and they had done nothing but sniff at him, he started to consider that he might be able to sit up. He did and they continued watching him, cocking their heads from side to side like he had seen dogs do at peculiar sounds. Boldened by their apparent curiosity, he stood up slowly, keeping both in his sights as he kept his head tilted back to look up at them. They knew he didn't fear them, not their size or their jaws or their strength. They knew what he did fear. Somehow, they knew, and they both snorted on him, dousing him in steam enough to dampen his hair.

The greenish-bronze one nudged him just above his arse and Sandor had to bite back his curse at being poked in the nether regions without warning. He figured that the dragons wouldn't take kindly to being cursed at, intelligent as they were.

"He's playing with you," said Mormont, failing to suppress a smirk at Sandor's discomfort. "His name is Rhaegal, named for the queen's brother Rhaegar. The black and red one is Drogon, named for her husband, Khal Drogo."

Sandor didn't give two shits what their names were. The fact that they were _playing _with him was enough for him to need to find a chamber pot or a bush and busy himself for the next hour or two. He started back for the wagon but the one named Rhaegal continued to shove its muzzle into Sandor's arse as if searching for some hidden hunk of meat he had stored up there until Sandor had to turn his backside away from it in exasperation.

"You'd best quit that. I don't have anything for you," he told the dragon, surprised at his own daring. The dragon let him return to the cart without any further interruptions and he helped Mormont up into the seat beside him, glad to leave the giant winged beasts behind.

Mormont, however, seemed to take new heart in being near the dragons, for he didn't look quite as green on the ride back to the castle and regaled Sandor with the dragons' history. It was all Sandor could do to not pitch him out of the wagon, but he couldn't even hear the end of the dragons when they saw the Dragon Queen awaiting their update at the palisade that had been constructed until the wall's completion.

"Are they eating well again?" asked the Targaryen woman.

"At least fifteen sheep apiece, a hog or two and a handful of goats," said Mormont, gingerly lowering himself out of the wagon. "They set upon the turncloaks eagerly enough. Rhaegal seemed to be in good spirits." He then went on to explain how the dragons had cornered Sandor and then teased him, for which their so-called mother appeared most pleased, if somewhat puzzled.

"They will allow strangers to get close if I am near them, but they don't like to approach themselves. They recognize my bloodriders, Lord Tyrion, Grey Worm, Missendei, Ser Jorah, and Jon Snow, but for them to be so accepting of you, I am actually quite astounded. Neither of them have been the same since they lost their brother to the Night King, but you must have a way about you to get Rhaegal to take to you so readily. I would wager that he thinks of you as his pet."

Sandor drew the line at being referred to as a dragon's pet.

"With all due respect, Your Grace, that'll be the last time I deliver meat to your dragons. I'm not overly fond of being pushed around with a dragon's nose in my arse."

"It's a new experience, to be sure. I thank you for doing this. I would have sent Ser Jorah alone, had he been in better health."

The knight looked ashamed that he was still so useless to his queen but Sandor would have given him every excuse. After all, he had nearly had his innards spilled out to decorate the battlefield; he was allowed to be weak.

With the bodies now properly disposed of, the lords and ladies of Winterfell lost sleep over how many turncloaks remained, but Sandor was more concerned with how the sellsword had managed to free himself from his cell, find a weapon, cut down a handful of men, and find his way to the little bird's corridor all without being apprehended or even spotted. It made Sandor lose what little faith he had in the Stark guards to protect their lords an so he nearly always dismissed whichever one of them was on duty outside of the little bird's room and took over the watch himself. When the former guard's relief came, he sent that one away as well, but made the mistake of discharging four rotations in a row and forgetting that he had not gotten proper sleep the night before, placing himself in danger of nodding off himself.

The little bird had poked her head out to find him slapping himself awake at some ungodsly hour of the morning and she sent him to find himself a replacement. He was furious with himself for being caught out of sorts and after a few hours' rest, returned to his self-assigned post. For as long as the sellsword remained in the castle, Sandor would be taking the lady's watch and no one could send him off—except the little bird herself, which she did on the day the hired sword was to stand trial.

"I won't have need of you until this evening when the court convenes," she had told him. "Try to rest until then, you look like you haven't slept in days."

He did sleep, solidly for near on four hours and then stole some kidney pie from the kitchens, snacking on it with only his fingers as utensils. He shoveled great handfuls of the flaky crust and gravy into his mouth with abandon and was caught thus with his fingers in his mouth when the Imp and Lord Varys rounded the corner just ahead of him, deep in concerned conversation. They both paused when they caught sight of him and he was aware that he had crumbs and gravy coating his beard, but he didn't look away, waiting for them to keep moving.

"Perhaps our friend here might have some profound advice on the matter," suggested the Imp.

"Speaking the truth and having wisdom are two very different things," said the eunich.

The Imp brandished a raven scroll at Sandor and summarized it for him, giving Sandor time to lick the rest of the gravy from his fingers and wipe his hand on the back of his tunic. "King's Landing is filled to the brim in anticipation of the siege that was promised."

"It wasn't crowded enough already?" asked Sandor, belching out as some of the kidney settled at the base of his throat.

"Cersei has begun to call in all commoners from outside the capitol, demanding that farmers, peasants, stationed soldiers, and the like find refuge in the city in preparation for Queen Daenerys's arrival."

"Human arrow fodder," observed the Imp.

"A crude way of putting it, but yes, it would appear that Cersei has decided that her best form of defense is to put the innocent in the line of fire to hold back our queen. She has nowhere to retreat to after the fall of Casterly Rock, so her last defense is the Golden Company and if they fail her, she is depending on the humanity of our queen to spare the innocents."

Sandor scoffed at the claim. There were no innocents in King's Landing except perhaps the children, a few women, an old man or two. Not even half the population, not even a quarter of it. He had not forgotten how those rats had attempted to tear him apart, how they might have if he had not been wearing armor. He had not forgotten those men who raped at least five of the ladies traveling in the Princess Myrcella's departure party, how the little bird had nearly been added to that number.

"I am not overly fond of them either, but if you imagine them all as helpless children, it's easier to forget how quickly they sway from ruler to ruler," said the Imp. "Don't forget, I was there, too. I helped save all of those people when Stannis attacked the Mud Gate, as did you."

No, Sandor didn't fight at the Mud Gate to help save the people of King's Landing. He did it because he was told to do it and he waited until there were hardly any men left to challenge him before he decided that it wasn't worth dying over.

"I had best deliver the scroll to Her Grace, Jon Snow, and Lady Sansa, do pardon me, my lords," said Lord Varys, excusing himself with a bow.

Sandor could never shake the slimy feeling he experienced after being around the eunich. He knew the man didn't care much for him, though he couldn't imagine why. The two of them had nary spoken a word to each other in all the years they both had called the Red Keep home, but Sandor would have been a fool to not know that the Spider specialized in nosing his way into everyone's business. For him to be serving the Dragon Queen now, Sandor had no doubt that Lord Varys knew of every exchange anyone of importance had had within the castle with the help of his little birds (and Sandor hated that he called them that, for he had gifted that name to the elder Stark girl and didn't want to associate spies with her).

"It was a stroke of genius on your part in getting Queen Daenerys to delay the march to King's Landing," said the Imp. "Our soldiers certainly aren't ready to face the Golden Company whilst simultaneously taking great care to not slaughter the population of King's Landing. If only you could be so persuasive in convincing Lady Stark to remain here in Winterfell when we finally do make our way south."

"You think she'd listen if I told her she should stay here?" asked Sandor skeptically.

"The Lady of Winterfell should not go anywhere near King's Landing while Cersei still sits the throne. Even after I'm told Lady Olenna Tyrell admitted to my brother that she was the one to spike Joffrey's goblet with poison, Cersei would still blame Sansa just for the hell of it. She needs to stay here."

"She'll go where she wants now that she's got no one to tell her otherwise. Unless you command her as her lord and husband to stay." It had occurred to Sandor when he saw the Imp offering his condolences for the little bird's misfortune with the stone wall that she had been wed to the half-lord before Ramsay and that her marriage to the bastard was not legitimized until her marriage to the Imp was rescinded. There was nothing he could do to Ramsay Bolton for his treatment of the little bird but the Imp was here in the flesh and Sandor was more than frustrated that he could do nothing to this one either because he knew the Imp was the one person who would not have harmed her. The result was an overall unbearable situation.

"Technically, I'm still married to her, though with the demolition of the Great Sept and of the worship of new gods in general as well as the fact that we never consummated after the ceremony, I would say that our marriage has annulled itself. You must be relieved."

Sandor spared the Imp a look he always reserved especially for him though inside he was filled with a sense of—relief? He had no doubt the Imp would have been gentle with her and far more so than the Bolton bastard, but to know that only one man had ever been with her made him feel relief—and then disgust that he would rather she had been raped by only one man than two instead of not at all. But how would the Imp know what was going on inside his head at this moment?

"Your lack of response leads me to believe that I'm correct in my assumption."

"I don't follow," said Sandor shamelessly.

"Come now, my large friend, everyone who has seen the pair of you speak to each other knows what you want from her—or at least, I know what you want from her. I've known it since I caught you _happening _upon her in the Red Keep. Even then, you had that hungry look about you as you growled and snapped at her. You'll take note of the fact that she doesn't allow anyone else to speak to her with such disrespect as you do."

"It's truth telling because she knows I won't stand to listen to the lot of you m'lord and m'lady each other every time one of you takes a piss and she doesn't have to pretend to like me to my face."

"But she does, or at least she tolerates you. You're her friend and one of the few she has left. Watch over her, if you can."

_What the hells does he think I've been doing?_

"Don't need you to tell me what I should be doing. I'll do what I please."

"As you always have, but all the same, try to convince her to stay here. You might just be the only one who can get through to her."

There was a fascinating truth to that statement. The little bird tended to blatantly pay no heed to commands and suggestions given to her by anyone—except Sandor as of late. If anyone might be able to penetrate that newfound thick skull of hers, it would be him and Sandor didn't want her anywhere near King's Landing while his brother still guarded Cersei. If Cersei got so much as a whiff that the little bird was in the vicinity, she would send Gregor to finish her off.

"She likes you, Clegane, for some unexplainable reason, so use that to her advantage. I care for her as much as I am able despite all of the abnormalities in our relationship, but she has never listened to me. If you care for her like I know you do—whether or not you will admit to it—make her stay here."

"Then you'd best find me some damn good rope because she developed a strong will since you and I last saw her."

He didn't care for the Imp's smile as the half-man moved on. Whatever he claimed, Sandor knew that the Imp was not a fool and only a fool would not have some sort of desire for a woman of the little bird's beauty.

Dusting any remaining crumbs from his beard, Sandor checked his reflection in one of the foggy window panes when a Stark guard approached him, uncomfortably avoiding Sandor's burned side.

"Sandor Clegane, m'Lady Sansa has asked for you."

"Asked what of me?"

Stumped for an answer, the guard faltered and Sandor enjoyed the look of confusion on the latter's face. To even suggest that the Lady of Winterfell wanted anything more than discussion with _the_ Hound was nothing short of scandalous and the guard wouldn't know what to make of it, so Sandor's secret was safe for now.

"I know my way from here," he told the stunned guard, glad that his beard hid most of his smile. Now that he got to thinking about it, his beard could use a trim. It served him well in keeping in the warmth around his neck up north, but he was due to ride south and would not be needing it much longer. Reminding himself to shave it down to its normal length, he found himself outside the lady's chambers. Someone had not shut the door properly and he invited himself in with his thoughts still wrapped around the Imp's observation. He was struck dumb by the sight of pale skin, prominent shoulder blades, and flashes of a naked back underneath her undone silken strands of hair. She sat in the basin, scrubbing the dirt and dust from her body and the only reason she hadn't heard him enter was because she was splashing around enough to drown out any sound. Her body turned to reach for more scented soap and he glimpsed the curve of a bare breast.

He stiffened below and bit back the moan of longing that yearned to be born at the sight of her. Grasping the door handle, he pulled it almost shut, backing himself into the corridor and sinking down against the wall. Thank the gods she hadn't turned around to see him watching her or she would never have allowed him to enter her chambers again.

Tugging his tunic out over his breeches to cover the very obvious bulge, he rapped at the door and this time waited for her to admit him. She told him to wait and his efforts to think of other things besides the naked woman inside were dashed as he imagined her rising from the tub to towel herself off and dress. When she allowed him to enter, she was doing up her hair in the northern style in preparation for the trial, for it was imperative that she look the part of a lady, but the room still smelled of soapy bathwater and it did nothing for Sandor's erection. She had called him in, but did not acknowledge him as she continued to pin her hair in the appropriate way.

Did she not know that it was agony to be standing here in her chambers, seeing her hair still damp from her bath and his manhood throbbing to enter her as he thought of her bare body?

"Is there something wrong?" she asked in concern.

"Not enough sleep," he lied, and assumed his position at her side.

It never been quite as difficult walking next to her as it was this evening, for he hoped she would not venture a look below his waist but also secretly wanted to get caught in his arousal for her, just to see how she might react to him. He was deluding himself if he thought she would take him up on his body's offer, but he still wanted to see just how uncomfortable it would make her before she did something, anything. Half the pleasure was seeing her bumble her way through the situation and the part of him that wanted her to see how easily and often he grew hard for her was so sorely tempted to shove her against the wall and let her get a good look at him, trial be damned.

But he didn't, and his erection didn't thank him for it.

He stood in an alcove off to the side of the high table as the hall filled with those holding a high enough rank of importance to be present for a sellsword's trial. The Targaryen woman took the center seat with Snow on her right, the Imp on her left, and the little bird on the Imp's other side. The queen's advisors filled up the empty spaces behind her and finally, when Sandor was starting to feel a flight instinct that disliked crowds, the sellsword was summoned, shackled by the wrists and ankles this time since he so easily slipped out of his last restraints. Who should lead him out but the Kingslayer and Brienne of Tarth's squire, Podrick, both men who knew the sellsword well, which led Sandor to question if the man had freed himself or if someone had helped him escape.

Brought to the center of the hall before the high table, the sellsword didn't look one bit perturbed by his surroundings, as calm as Sandor had been when the Brotherhood held him for trial himself. Experienced killers didn't often feel like trapped prey, even when they were indeed trapped. Given the chance to fight for his freedom, he would surely ask for it and give it everything, as Sandor had.

Thumping his fist on the table, Snow called for silence and then turned the proceedings over to the onion knight who seemed to exist only to announce all the titles of the various rulers he served.

"Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, you stand accused of various crimes against Queen Daenerys Targaryen as well as the North: attempted murder of Her Grace, attempted murder of her dragons, association with the usurper Cersei Lannister, mutilation of Lady Sansa Stark's sworn shield—"

"I'm no one's sworn shield, fucking get it right, will you?" snapped Sandor. If this was going to be a lengthy trial, he didn't want to get halfway through and still have people be under the impression that he had made vows to protect the Lady of Winterfell when he was more or less given the option to watch her foolishly get herself into the type of trouble only Starks could find or do nothing.

"Mutilation of Ser Sandor Clegane—"

"He is not a knight," said the little bird, catching Sandor's eye. She had had to be viciously corrected on that multiple times by Sandor and he was pleased to find that the fact had finally sunken in by now.

"Thievery, arson, conspiracy, treason, all part of a rather long list, I'm afraid," continued the Imp, taking over for the obviously flustered onion knight. "As part of this four-man-and-women jury, I must state these terms to you, though I will vouch for you when I am called to stand—"

"You may proceed with that bit now, Lord Tyrion, I don't want this to be a very long trial," said the Dragon Queen, sounding indeed bored as if an attack by a sellsword on the Lady of Winterfell was not worth her time.

"If it please Your Grace, I know this man well," said the Imp, leaving his seat beside her to address the court, but he did not have much room to walk about since his audience sat not four feet away from the sellsword on either side and the Imp had to squeeze past them as he made his rounds. "I am the reason he finds himself here now and not just because my sister sent him to kill my brother and me. When Lady Catelyn Stark believed me to be guilty of conspiring to kill her son, Brandon Stark, she took me prisoner and escorted me to the Vale where I was sentenced to trial by combat. I named my brother Jaime Lannister as my champion, but the trial needed to take place that day and no one would stand for me—except Bronn. Granted, he did it for the promise of a winner's purse that he assumed my father would give him for my safe return, but he did it all the same. And he stayed on even after he had been given his gold. I raised him up from a common sellsword to Commander of the City Watch and I paid him every step of the way. As Hand of King Joffrey, I paid him. As Master of Coin, I paid him until I was accused of King Joffrey's murder and then my sister paid him to not stand for me again in trial by combat. My sister paid him to continue training my brother to find better use in his left hand. My sister paid him to help my brother command the Lannister army. My sister paid him to assassinate me."

"Yes, sellswords do tend to ask for money for their services, you've made your very valid point, Lord Tyrion," said the Dragon Queen impatiently, and Sandor had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Sardonic rulers who were not at all shy about hiding their intolerance and sarcasm for their subjects did not last long on the throne in Sandor's experience. Even though the man on trial deserved nothing better, he should be tried by a ruler who would listen to him, regardless of whether or not they sympathized with him.

"Exactly, sellswords are so named for the cost of their blades' services," said the Imp. "Ser Bronn had to be paid for nearly everything he ever did for me or my sister and brother and I say nearly because he did some things, some good things for motives of his own like saving my brother from your dragon's fire on the Goldroad. But he was paid in advance with gold and promised a castle after his completion of my assassination and my brother's with nothing to stop him from doing so. And yet, he didn't. He's a clever man; he would have known that my brother and I were in the castle, perhaps even known which rooms we slept in. You did know, didn't you?" The Imp appealed to Bronn and the sellsword gave a smug shrug.

"Thank you, yes. You see, he found his way inside this heavily guarded castle and could have killed anyone he wanted. Guards protect you and Lady Sansa and me, the lesser capable warriors of the North at all times, but they are just guards, not skilled fighters whose very survival depends on winning battles. Ser Bronn could have come for any of us, could have ended this war in killing you for Cersei, could have collected his bounty, could have done anything he wanted, but he chose to find Lady Sansa and tell her why he had come."

"Why didn't he come to you or your brother?" asked Snow. "If you claim to know him so well, why would he go to a woman he hasn't seen for years instead of the men who paid him?"

"Because that would have made both of us look guilty. He went to Lady Sansa because he knows her as well, if not quite to the same level that I do. He was still my hired sword when I was wed to Lady Sansa and I paid him to protect her among his other duties, but he wouldn't accept a bonus for that. He went to her, armed only because of her bodyguard, and if I may speak so boldly, any man who would approach the Hound without a weapon does not value their life enough to want to keep it. He shot at Sandor Clegane, yes, he stabbed him, yes—"

"And am I supposed to settle with that?" demanded Sandor. "The fucker almost cut my nose off."

"And you broke his and set the direwolf on him," the Imp reminded Sandor. "I think that's more than fair."

"I didn't set the wolf on him, it came on its own," growled Sandor. It was the truth, sure as not. He had fully intended on having another go at the sellsword's nose after the prick had kicked him in the balls but the wolf had come from nowhere and done half the job for him. Sandor had acquired its name from the little bird after the wolf had taken an interest in him and he was more than slightly surprised that it heeded his command and then placed itself in front of him just as he had done for the little bird.

"Can you confirm that the wolf was not set on this man, Lady Sansa?" asked the Dragon Queen.

"I can. Ghost had a mind of his own when he attacked."

"If anything, I called it off so that this piece of shit could live to answer for his crimes," Sandor added.

"Don't expect me to thank you for that," said the sellsword.

"Sandor Clegane, stand down, you have not yet been called forward," said Snow.

"As I was saying," continued the Imp with a glare Sandor's way, "Ser Bronn defended himself, but only against an opponent, not against Lady Sansa. He never made a move toward her and had even disarmed himself to prove his true intentions were not to harm her—"

"Then where'd he get the dirk that cut my face?" spat Sandor.

"Clegane, if you speak out of turn again, you will be removed from the trial," said Snow.

That seemed a fair price to pay if only to let the court know that the Imp's defense could only go so far since the half-man wasn't there when the sellsword had taunted Sandor. The prick knew what he was doing, knew that if he baited Sandor enough, that Sandor would react. He meant to cause Sandor harm for personal reasons because if he had no ill feelings, he would have thrown his weapons down when the little bird told him to, not commenced with that verbal fuckery.

"A stupid man would have disarmed himself completely with you still holding onto your sword," said Bronn. "I'm not stupid. Aye, I kept me dirk, and I could have cut out your eyeball or opened your throat, but I didn't. I meant to wound you enough to get you off've me. Didn't work, but I meant to."

"If you want proof of his fealty, look no further than the ashes of the four men he killed in the passageway to Lady Sansa's room. He was chained in his cell—"

"A cell he managed to open and free himself from," observed the Targaryen woman.

"He wouldn't be worth much if he couldn't free himself from difficult situations, Your Grace. But he heard the commotion and could have taken up arms against us, helped the turncloaks kill their intended targets, or fled to save his own skin. He could have taken a horse and been gone before any of us knew it. We would not have caught him. But he stayed, he took a sword, and cut down those men who wanted to harm Lady Sansa. He found himself outside her chamber, lay down his sword, and waited for someone to arrive to shackle him again. That is not the behavior of a sellsword who has already been bought. Twice he did the exact opposite of what he would naturally be inclined to do, for our benefit."

So Sandor's wounds had been for the North's benefit, had they?

"He was surrendering to the North, Your Grace. He approached Lady Sansa and Sandor Clegane quietly, both admit that they never heard him coming until he deliberately let himself be heard. He could have killed her then or at any point during their exchange."

He bloody well could not have, not with Sandor using every spare inch of his broad frame to shield the little bird behind him.

"He had the gold, he had the means, he had the motivation, and he chose not to. His intentions are true. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he's chosen to live over the chance to fill his pocket. No man loves gold more than Ser Bronn, but he gave it up because he knows we are going to win this war and he wants to live."

"You vouch quite profoundly for him."

"If no one else will, I will. He gave me that opportunity when he stood for me and won. I only hope that my words are as triumphant as his sword was that day. Many people in this room are alive because of events leading to and from me. I don't wish to take credit for how things have unfolded, but I like to think that we have all helped one another get to this point and if you take one of us out of the equation, the result does not end up here. Of the many puzzle pieces we are, one missing piece and the puzzle is incomplete. I would have been a missing piece if not for Ser Bronn and I believe him when he says that he has defected to the North."

The Targaryen woman leaned sideways to confer with Snow but whatever advice he had to give her was apparently not what she wanted to hear, for she repositioned herself in her seat and turned instead to the little bird.

"Lady Sansa, you are the one who was approached by Ser Bronn with a loaded crossbow, tell me what you think should be done with him?"

"I don't trust him, Your Grace," said the little bird as if she had had her answer ready the whole time. "I don't trust him to be set free to fight alongside our soldiers against Cersei's. But I do know that he doesn't prey on the innocent. He has some code, though it may be muddled. If he truly means what he says in that he stands for us, let him prove it. He will not be paid upon completion of his task. He will not earn a single coin, he will be given no reward other than his life. When the war is over, he will be set free if and only if his charge also survives the war."

"His charge?"

"Me," said the little bird.

Sandor had never found it so difficult to remember his place as now, especially with how he had grown far too used to speaking to the Lady of Winterfell however he damn well pleased and calling out her proposition as a stupid fucking idea would earn him a punishment he did not have time for. He tried to catch her eye again, to warn her to change her mind, but she was deliberately ignoring him, staring the sellsword down with an intensity that he had not yet seen from her. It was the look of a woman in a position of political power, and he had never seen her use that power before.

It was highly appealing, even if the subject for her using that power was not one to his liking.

"Ser Bronn will be my sworn shield from now until the day the war is over. He may die in battle protecting me, but if my life is forfeit, so is his. If we are both breathing when Cersei Lannister is defeated, he may go free. Until that time, he will stand guard outside my door or my tent when assigned, he will sleep chained to his bedpost to see that he does not escape, and he will be escorted to and from my side in those same chains until I deem it necessary to halt the precautions. He will not allow himself to be drunk, he will not lay with women, and he will not be given coin to waste upon these things. These are the duties I charge you with, Ser Bronn. Do you accept them, or do you accept the noose?"

The bastard knelt, shackles clanking together loudly with his movement. "I accept the terms, m'lady, and thank you for me life."

"Thank me when you earn it back. Ser Davos, have Ser Bronn fitted with new armor; he might have great need of it once we march south. Then pick out a bed in the barracks for him and set up a guard rotation on him, one of whom will always have the key to his shackles. I need hardly add what the consequences are if you attempt to free yourself again, Ser Bronn."

"No need, m'lady," said Bronn.

"As your first assignment, you will attend me on the morrow as I take my prayer in the godswood."

The white-haired queen stood and commanded the attention of all in the Great Hall. "Very well, Ser Bronn. You are charged with protecting the Lady Sansa until I sit the Iron Throne and you will then earn your pardon from me if I have deemed you worthy of redemption. You will say your vows in the godswood on the morrow and if you should deliberately fail by your choice to forsake your vows, you will not be so lucky this time around in evading the very dragon you attempted to kill on the Goldroad."

"Understood, Your Grace." The sellsword bent at the waist as he rose and let the Stark guards lead him from the hall.

Gradually, the hall emptied until only the little bird and Sandor remained, as was the norm now, but she looked positively drained by the events of the day and despite his disapproval of her sentencing, Sandor did not let that influence him as he carried her back to her quarters. He left her to change into her nightgown, standing vigil outside and inwardly fuming, but he was not there long when he heard her calling to him from within. She had covered herself in her robe and was reading through a raven scroll at the desk across from her bed.

"Cersei is relentless, even if she isn't particularly clever. I learned much from her, but the grander her schemes, the more heavily they fall on her when they fail," she said, letting the scroll roll back into its original form. It must have been the same one the Imp and Lord Varys were reading earlier for her to only just now be receiving it, but Sandor didn't give that much care at the moment.

The little bird drummed her fingers on top of the desk, but he had nothing regarding the scroll to say to her, which prompted her to beckon him closer.

"Was there something you wanted to say?" she asked suspiciously.

Yes, indeed, and she was about to get an earful of it.

"You made a cutthroat your fucking sworn shield," he growled, leaning his knuckles on the desk between them to lower himself over her.

"I can have more than one, though I currently only have one because you made it very clear that you aren't accepting of that position in front of the court."

"You made _him_ your sworn shield after he did this to my face? After he stabbed me? Have you lost your fucking mind, girl?"

"Do not speak to me like that," she said, affronted. "He would never have touched you if you did not give in to his bait. He was mocking you, nothing more, and you pounced on him with the intention to kill him, so I see no reason to blame him for defending himself."

"You're determined to get a knife in your back, aren't you?"

"I am not some stupid little girl. I make my own decisions in my own home and no underlying threats and predictions of doom from you can influence me. Ser Bronn will earn back his freedom by proving himself the same way you did. You might have been brought back here in chains because you served the Lannisters during Joffrey's reign, but you rode in a free man because of your services to us, proof that you had changed sides. He deserves the same opportunity."

"Does he? You knew he was trying to get me to go for him, but you didn't see the need to mention that at his trial, did you? Didn't think it was worth noting that your so-called repentant sworn shield deliberately tried to goad me into fighting him just so he could get in a few good licks with that dirk of his. But you kept mum on that because you knew the Dragon Queen wouldn't approve of him if you let that be common knowledge."

"I can't fault him for not liking you."

"Then you can have him carry you around from now on," said Sandor viciously. "And leave me out of it."

"Sandor Clegane, are you jealous?" she asked with lockjaw that suggested she was trying not to grin at him. He could stand to be mocked by anyone and everyone when it concerned his affiliation with her, but to hear her mock him for the same reason, hear the words spill from her mouth, he would not have it.

He slammed his fists down on the desk between them, upsetting an ink well where it spread out across several pieces of parchment. The little bird sat back in her chair to put some distance between her and his rage, but she had nowhere to go.

"Don't you dare accuse me of being jealous on your behalf, girl. I'm fucking angry, is what I am. A man like that is pardoned for his crimes while a man like me is berated for them at every meal by Jaime Fucking Lannister. Bronn of the Blackwater served whichever Lannister it suited him to serve at the time and no one called him traitor, but I left the Blackwater so that I wouldn't go up in green flames and they call me a coward and a turncoat. He betrays whoever he feels like betraying and gets to be a sworn shield and I walk away from my post and get a bounty put on my head. He's a fucking sorry excuse for a knight, given the title because he lit an armada of men on fire while I stood guard outside the King's chambers as he wanked off to the thought of butchering men. I—am—_angry_, not jealous, and if I ever hear you call my words or actions by that name again—"

"You'll what?" she demanded. "You will _what_, exactly? What will you threaten to do? Threats are meant to frighten the threatened with fear for their life. You aren't going to kill me. You won't hurt me, so what could you possibly do to me?"

She had him. She called his bluff. He had no idea what he was going to say to her at the end of his speech, but she had cut him off before he could get there and now that she demanded to know how he planned on taking his vengeance on her if she referred to his anger as jealousy again, he had no answer for her.

He could only do what she didn't expect now. He moved around to her side of the desk, took the front of her robe, and lifted her up out of her seat until she was level with him, her feet dangling off of the ground.

"I won't hurt you, little bird, not physically."

If she was so clever, she would understand, unless he had misinterpreted every fucking sign, subtle or not, that she had thrown his way since their reunion. There was only one way he could harm her now and he would do it if she pushed him that far.

"You wouldn't do that to me," she insisted.

"Do what?"

"You wouldn't leave me, after everything."

"What do you assume is _everything_, little bird? You think I owe something to you, to stay? You think I'm under obligation to cart you around for the rest of my life because you gave me a lord's room? You think because I've stayed this long that I'm dedicated to you? No, you ignorant child, I'm still here because I'm still wounded, now even more because of your new beloved sellsword shield. I'm only waiting out my recovery until I'm gone from this place, just like I promised you. This isn't my home, and you can't make it that."

"But it is. You belong here, you—"

"Stop talking. Stop it. Let me tell you true, girl. There is nothing you can say or do to keep me here, but you can get me to leave a hell of a lot faster by making more men like that prick your bodyguards."

"You don't like him, you're trying to make me rescind my decision and he would tell me to do the same but however little I know about the both of you, I do know that you would never do to me what Ramsay did. I don't know any men well enough to presume to know what they would do to me if they could, if they were near enough to me to try. I know of three men in this world who wouldn't ever hurt me in that way: Tyrion, Bronn, and you."

"Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he wouldn't."

"How many people have said that about you? I ignored all of them and I'm ignoring you now when you're giving me this so-called counsel."

So, she had others whispering in her ear that he, Sandor, was not to be trusted, did she? He wondered if the Imp was on the list, if Lord Varys, her brother, maybe even the Dragon Queen were all advising her to distance herself from him, but she chose not to. But he had proven that he was no threat to her, hadn't he? What had the sellsword done to prove that?

"I value your advice, Sandor, I truly do, but it's only advice and I am at liberty to accept or ignore it or at the very least, consider it. I have to be in control of one aspect of my life."

"Did you make that decision before or after Littlefinger sold you to the Boltons?" asked Sandor bitingly.

Now she was upset, and not solely at him, but herself, it seemed. She bristled and it almost lent to her appearance in making her hair look like it had caught fire. "Littlefinger was a master manipulator and he convinced me that marrying a Bolton would set me on the path to avenge my family. I was foolish enough to believe him, but I was still learning how that game was played and I trusted him because he had freed me from Joffrey. I would have trusted you if I had gone with you because you wanted to do the same, but that was my mistake. After he left me here with the Boltons, I had no choice but to accept Ramsay and up until my wedding night, I felt confident that I could accomplish what I meant to. Only, I hadn't expected Ramsay to be worse than his father and he broke me that night. He broke any resolve I had to survive, and not just because he abused me. It's more than that. It's the belittlement, the emotional scarring, the feeling of worthlessness and helplessness that he forced into me. That stays with you far longer than anything a man can do to your body, even if what he did to your body is still visible a year later."

She could not say it directly, but if ever he had heard a cry for help, it was this. She wanted him to know what had happened to her, what Ramsay Bolton had done to her. He had seen the tiniest glimpses of her bare skin as she bathed, but any marks the bastard had left on her were not visible at the time. Now, all he had to do was pull her robe apart to see Bolton's handiwork and his urge, his need to see it was greater than any masculine instinct to bed her. She was asking him to ask her to see because she couldn't do it herself, which made him suspect that no one had seen her abused body before. He would be the first; she _wanted_ him to be the first.

He set her down, took hold of her shoulders to keep her upright, and said, "Let me see what he did to you."


	8. Chapter 8: Of the North

**SANSA**

"Let me see what he did to you."

She had not expected him to ask, but to expose her of his own doing without permission. Now that he had asked, she wasn't prepared to oblige him.

"It's not yours to see," she said timidly. _I'm not yours to see._

"Isn't it? I'm the only one who's asked, aren't I? No one else has asked because no one wants to look at it and tell you they're sorry. What'll it do to say sorry? I want to see it because I fucking want to see it and you want to show me, I know you do."

"Don't presume to tell me what I want."

"Then tell me to go. Tell me to fuck off or show me, girl, because you can't keep living on the edge and not choosing one way or the other."

It hurt to draw breath as she recalled Ramsay telling her to take off her clothes moments before forcing himself into her, tearing her apart from the inside out, making her bleed. The Hound couldn't know that his request made her revisit those horrors and to tell him would ensure that he never came back to her room. She couldn't show him, but she couldn't deny him and Ramsay Bolton had ruined her, ensuring that she could never fully trust a man, however much she wanted to.

Her fingers were on the front of her robe, trembling, but she couldn't open it. The Hound took her wrists and pulled the robe open in one harsh jerk to expose her nightgown and bare arms, bare collar bone, bare upper chest. For him to see her as such, it was indecent, for this sight was one only her handmaid and her husband should ever see, but as was the case in nearly everything related to the Hound, he was the exception.

The raised white skin of her many scars, the faint indents of bruising that had ruptured her inside, never to heal, every mark Ramsay had ever given her was on display and the Hound was the first to see them, for she didn't even let Eira see her undressed. No one had looked upon Ramsay Bolton's handiwork but Sansa, but there was a small measure of relief in showing someone, even if it was someone who would take pleasure in seeing her naked for him.

He was horrified. She didn't often see anything other than disdain on his face, but this—in a world where brutality, rape, and murder were daily occurrences and where he had seen them all—this shocked him, shocked him to the point where he did not even shamelessly rake his eyes down the tops of her exposed breasts as she knew he would have done in any other circumstance.

She let out her restrained sobs and cast her head down, ashamed, pained.

"I can still feel him on me, I feel it every day what he's done to me and it never stops hurting. He was right. One of the last things he said to me was that he would always be with me, that I would feel him inside me and around me when I slept, when I was awake, always. He told me that he'd never leave me and that I would feel his touch everywhere until the day I died. I watched his dogs rip him apart and I thought I'd won but he only died; I have to live with what he did to me. I should be free to be happy, but I'm not. I want happiness but I can't find it because of what he did to me. I lie awake wanting it to end now months after it has because it still hurts and I don't know how to take it—sometimes I can't take it. I hate it, I hate the way he left my body to feel, knowing he'll never leave me and I can't stand for one more person to tell me how I should compose myself after what he put me through."

He touched her, his large, gnarled fingers gliding across one of the impressions on her shoulder. His thumb traced it carefully, tenderly, almost lovingly in an attempt to replace the sensation of pain there with a new one. One by one he sought out the visible scars and gave them each the same treatment until all she knew was the feel of his hands on her. It was almost possible to forget that Ramsay had ever been near her, on her, inside her. The Hound ended with caressing a series of hash marks across the back of her neck and gooseflesh erupted along her arms as he touched her there. There was nothing sensual about his touch. It was entirely nurturing, the way her mother might have tended to her with placid fingers afraid of shattering her delicate skin.

_I would have done it differently. I would have been far more gentle_, his eyes told her. _But not too gentle._

That wasn't his way. He would not have intentionally caused her pain, but he had a roughness to him that was impossible to stamp out and Sansa could have expected that if the Hound had ever had her.

Flat-palmed, he touched her stomach where a child of Ramsay's might have grown if Sansa hadn't been determined to never give birth to it. This was far too intimate and she should tell him to keep his distance, but she never could summon the courage to tell him that he should not be this close to her. He invited himself to her in a way that a decent man would not, but he had not yet made her regret letting him do so. He simply took the step she was too afraid to take for herself and she wanted to know what it felt like to be properly handled by a man—or at least, held by one. She was not ready for anything beyond that and she doubted she ever would be, but this was simply a friend offering comfort to a friend, was it not? He could not harm the people who had hurt her, so to compensate, he tried to replace the pain she felt, as a true friend would.

His hand was almost as large as her entire stomach, for though she had grown into herself, she was still small and had not progressed as much as other women in some areas of her body. He put pressure against her navel, asking.

"I took moon tea as often as I could smuggle it," said Sansa. "But once he found out, he beat me enough to keep me from going to the kitchens. After that…I did what I had to."

"You intentionally hurt yourself so you'd miscarry," the Hound whispered, answering his own question. He sounded almost as if he admired her for putting herself through that to avoid bearing Ramsay's child, but he was empathetic to her plight in the first place. "How often?"

This was far too evasive of a question, asking how many times Ramsay had tried to impregnate her. The answer was every night, every single night for months. She had lost count intentionally but she knew that it was more times than years to the Hound's name.

"How often did he do this to you?" asked the Hound, but Sansa shook her head. She didn't know, she didn't want to remember.

For the first time, his grasp pinched her, not intentionally, but the shadow clouding his face told her that he wasn't aware of what his hand was doing, so consumed in the need to know. "How—many—times?"

"W-What does it matter? He didn't, and even if he had, any seed that took hold didn't survive because of my efforts to kill it."

"The fucker had you every night, didn't he? He spilled his seed in you every night and you mutilated yourself to be damn sure that you wouldn't carry his bastard."

He would be the one to speak so plainly to her, but the way he spoke to her could not have prepared her for how awful it sounded coming from him.

"Yes, he had me every night," replied Sansa, wiping the heel of her hand furiously at the tears on her cheeks. Any sense of comfort she had felt when the Hound had touched her was gone as her anger at his tactlessness took over. "Do you feel better now that you know?"

"Do I feel _better_?" he thundered and now she was certain that the entire castle was being treated to his rage. "The fucking piece of inbred shit raped you and did this to you every fucking night and that's supposed to make me feel better knowing? Why the fuck would you ask me that?"

"Because it's not your place to know. None of this is your place to know because I'm not yours!" cried Sansa. There, now she had made it plain that however familiar he had made himself with her, she was not his and he should not take it upon himself to treat her as such in demanding painful truths from her.

"I know that, godsdammit," he snarled.

_I'm not certain you do._

"It doesn't matter because you were still a child and it still happened to you. You should have come with me when I offered so that he couldn't—

"So it's my fault for not going with you?" asked Sansa incredulously. "It's my own stupid fault for getting raped because I wouldn't go with you, covered in blood and drunk?"

"No, it's my fault for not grabbing you and making you come with me even if you fought me every step of the way. I was the only person in that bloody city who gave a damn about you and could have done something and I didn't. And the whoreson piece of shite that did this to you is dead so I can't do a damn thing about it to level the playing field, make him hurt."

Sansa couldn't quite process everything that had come out of the Hound's mouth in the last few moments, everything he had done since opening her robe. She had wanted and received his comfort, yet now she was the one whose heart ached on his behalf because he would blame himself for her entire predicament for as long as he lived. He hurt for her in the way that only he ever did, or could. Unable to do anything about what had been done, unable to take it back, worthless in the aftermath.

"You can't blame yourself for this if I don't blame you," she told him sincerely. "And I don't. I punished the men who were at fault because that was my right, as it is yours in wanting to do something about it—for me. And that is enough, to know what you would have done."

She hadn't consoled him, though it was a bit ridiculous that she was the one standing there with her scars completely uncovered and yet _he _was the one who needed to be consoled.

The Hound let the pad of his thumb move in circles over a long cut that ran from the base of her jaw to her collar bone. "I didn't expect this," he said tonelessly.

In memory of the constant pain in her core, she remembered why she had insisted on bathing before the trial. Her moon pain returned to her now and she clutched at her lower abdomen as if the Hound himself had delivered a punch squarely to her belly and at her action, he quickly withdrew his hand from her.

"It's not you," she said quickly. "It's a woman's pain." She was not embarrassed to admit it, after just having had a heated exchange with him about what happened in the bedroom when one of the participating parties was unwilling. Her moon blood was a natural part of her and he would at least have some knowledge of that, having been around enough women in the brothels of King's Landing. What's more, he had been the one to find her in her chambers after she first flowered, catching her attempting to stuff the entire mattress in the hearth and he had pulled her from the flames before kicking the mattress out onto the floor and stamping out the fire. The commotion had been what brought more guards to her chambers, one of which informed Cersei of her ability to now bear children. Yes, the Hound knew a woman's pain, had been there when she had first experienced it.

He replaced her robe around her and carried her, a babe in his arms to the bed and pulled the furs to her midsection, untangling sweaty bits of hair from her face. His movements were methodical, gentile, and empathetic as if he were now hyper-aware of how she might interpret his every touch. He was trying too hard to not upset her, but it made him awkward to her in a way she did not appreciate. This persona he was taking on reminded her of her father, how he had sought to shield her from the ugliness of the world instead of exposing her to it. That had always been her father's job and it was the Hound's job to do the exact opposite, so she did not want him being careful around her now.

And apparently, he didn't want it any more than she did, for when she sat up in her bed to show him that she would not be tucked in like a child, he stopped and considered her.

"If all you can think about is what it felt like, you'll never know what it's like to feel anything else," he told her.

Like him. He knew the touch of fire, of flames licking away at his skin, of burning, burning, _burning_, and nothing else. He had feared her touch when she extended her hand to him. He was uncomfortable with her holding onto him every time he carried her. He had snapped at her for kissing him. He didn't know anything else and he was damaged for it.

Once again, he reached for the ugly marking on the back of her neck, sending those slightly unpleasant and mystifying sensations down into her core. He didn't say it, but she knew that his touch was reminding her of what it felt like to be nurtured. It had worked, if only momentarily, in ridding her of Ramsay's marks, washing her over in the feel of another dominant man caressing her in a manner she was deserving of.

The request was on her lips, but she never let it fly. She should not encourage him. He would take her offer the wrong way and as much as she wanted to help him heal and find peace within himself, she could not offer what was not in her power to give him, which was her. He stood guard for her, carried her, counseled her, and touched her every day in doing so, already too much interaction for two individuals who claimed to be friends and nothing more. If she gave him anything else, he might seize the opportunity that she hoped he never would. It would break him to be rejected by her if he asked, but he never would. He would wait for her to give him permission first and she could do nothing of the sort, not even hint at it in case he gathered the wrong impression.

There was so much she wanted to say to him, so much she did not have the words for after this bewildering act of inner devotion and—dare she think it—tenderness. She wanted him to know her gratitude in being able to sample what a man could give her, but she had let him in too close and it was not at all the smart thing to do with a man who would be gentler than Ramsay, but who wanted inside of her all the same.

She took hold of his hand to prevent him from leaving and asked him to stay with her grasp alone. He didn't pull away, but he didn't come any closer, standing there as sentry against the ghosts of Ramsay's actions.

After a while, he leaned away from her in suggestion, and there was too much truth to his unspoken words to ignore them. They could get away with him staying the night in her room as a guard the one time since it was in the aftermath of a battle and she needed a guard, but he could not accomplish the same feat twice without rumors spreading.

So she let her hand fall to the bed and he left her to face the darkness alone apart from the whisper of his touch still warm against her skin.

/ /

Ever the surly riser, the Hound mentioned nothing of their late-night discussion when he came to take her to the godswood the next morning. They stood in silence, unsure of how to proceed after the hurdle they had come through, but Sansa felt no differently with his hand on her waist as it so often had been of late. He was no rougher or gentler with her than he had been before she revealed Ramsay's brutality to him, for which she was relieved, for she didn't think she could stand to be treated differently by the one person who had always treated her with vitriol that she could rely on.

The Hound straightened beside her as they saw a Stark guard bringing Bronn before them in shackles which clanked together with every step he took, their clang magnified in the closeness of the godswood. The guard removed the bindings and replaced them with Bronn's weapons, though judging by the rough manner in which the guard shoved them into his hands, he did not approve of arming the sellsword. Bronn strapped his sword and dirk to his belt and then gave a rather sardonic flourish of his arm as he bowed to Sansa.

"M'lady," he greeted and then glanced up at the Hound. "And—er—well, now, what the fuck am I supposed to call you, then?"

"Try out a few things, see which one gets your head chopped off," suggested the Hound.

"It'd be worth it to call you the things I want to call you," said Bronn.

It was like trying to keep two adolescent boys from beating each other to death with wooden swords. Sansa had proposed that Bronn be her sworn shield without considering how that might affect her standing situation with the Hound. The two would not be making peace after their previous incident in the godswood, but she could not send either of them away.

"I will not listen to the both of you bickering and throwing insults at one another from now until the war ends," she said sternly. "Sandor, if you cannot be civil, you will find yourself attending someone else. And Ser Bronn, you will refrain from unkind comment if it is directed at Sandor Clegane."

"Beggin' your pardon, m'lady, but what's the fucking point, then? The big lad's there for the mocking and I'm inclined to make a joke at his expense or anyone's as part of me job."

"If you are unable to fulfill the part of your duty that involves treating people with respect, I can have someone show you to the gallows or call for Ghost. I believe you know him well by now."

"You're a sharp little thing, aren't you, girl?" said Bronn in both approval and aggravation.

"Do not call me that."

"Why not, he does," said Bronn, nodding at the Hound.

"He is the exception."

"I'm sure he is." The double meaning was enough for Sansa to remind him of how easily it was to meet his end at the gallows.

"Sandor, would you be so kind as to show Ser Bronn to his noose?"

"Alright, alright, I yield," grumbled Bronn. "Apologies, m'lady."

"If your first ten minutes as my sworn shield are any indication of the sort of behavior I should expect from you, I'm afraid Cersei might last longer than you at this point," said Sansa, needing him to put all manner of joking aside. She wanted him to succeed as her sworn shield, but he had spent far too much time mouthing off to Tyrion and grown used to it, resulting in the fact that he felt like he could speak to everyone in that manner. Like the Hound did.

"I'll work on that," Bronn promised.

"See that you do."

Sansa held out her arm for the Hound to help her to the base of the weirwood tree with Bronn trudging along behind them like a scolded child. He managed to keep his silence for a solid minute while Sansa examined the tree.

"Thought you were gonna pray? I don't pray to any gods, but I'm certain it doesn't involve molesting the tree."

"I don't pray anymore, but that shouldn't matter to you what I do in the godswood."

"No, I guess it shouldn't," he agreed. He glanced at the Hound as if waiting for him to speak. "What, you aren't going to reprimand me for not bowing and addressing her every time I open me mouth?"

"I don't," said the Hound. "You should, but if you don't, it's for her to tell you off."

"You never quite developed the knack for it," said Sansa. "You will address me as befitting my position when in company other than Sandor's. If I don't require him to be so proper, it's unfair that I require it of you as well"

"Is it Sandor now? Not Ser Sandor or Lord Clegane or whatever the hells he's made himself? A man with the honor of having a family name should have a title befitting of it unlike us smallfolk who only get the one."

Sansa reserved a disapproving grimace for the sellsword and Bronn desisted. She then directed him to a spot before her. "Kneel, Ser Bronn, and present your sword. In the sight of the old gods, you will swear it to me."

Bronn took a knee before her and held his blade out flat, but was apparently waiting for her to do something, uneducated in the ways of sacred vows. "What happens now?"

"You must speak the vows of a sworn shield," said Sansa, avoiding looking at the Hound at all costs because she knew he would be torn between laughing at her and reproaching her for choosing someone as inept as Bronn when it came to the finer points of knighthood.

"Right, then," said Bronn, clearing his throat. "Hang on, it'll come to me. Erm, I…I am yours, m'lady. I will…I swear to…er, to…, oh, for fuck's sake, what're the words?"

"Shield her back, keep her counsel, don't make me recite the rest to you, you twat," grumbled the Hound. "You should know this after how much time you spent in the damn capital."

"Apologies, m'lady, I've never actually seen this done before. I'm just sort of shitting me way through it."

"You'd best stop shitting and take it seriously," warned the Hound.

"Fine, then. I am yours, Lady Sansa. I will shield your back and keep your counsel and, er, die for you, I suppose? Is that right? Something to that effect. I'll die for you, if needs be. I swear it by whatever gods would hold me to that vow, whichever ones are listening or give a shit."

It was not as formal as Brienne's vows had been, but they served the same purpose, so they would have to do. Seeing the low-born made Sansa miss her first sworn shield something terrible. Brienne may have been a bit dull to converse with, preaching endlessly about how she swore to Sansa's mother to protect her, but the woman had been loyal to a fault and never spoke out against her. A truer knight than Bronn would ever be, but Sansa had known Bronn longer, if not better, and if a man as self-absorbed as he could submit himself to her and give up his chance at a fat purse, he couldn't be all bad.

"And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor," said Sansa.

"I've done plenty of dishonorable things without having a lord or lady tell me to do them," said Bronn, rising and sheathing his sword.

"Have you, now?" asked Sansa in mock surprise, which she knew Bronn would appreciate. She took notice of the swollen quality to his sword arm and how he pulled a grimace every time he moved it. "How fares your arm?"

"It's still there, no thanks to your wolf."

"He's not my wolf; he's my brother's, but he serves the Starks."

"And the Cleganes, apparently," said Bronn.

"Apparently," said the Hound, and Sansa saw a pair of gleaming red eyes creeping up on them from behind. Ghost was silent, padding through the snow and camouflaged well due to his coat but those eyes were a dead giveaway. He came within a sword length of Bronn and the sellsword was not even aware of him.

"When a wolf serves a dog, you know that some sort of shit—"

Ghost snarled and Bronn's mangled arm reached for his dirk, but the wolf dug his claws into the front of Bronn's armor as the sellsword spun around.

"Fucking hell!" shouted Bronn as Ghost lowered his maw to the man's neck.

"Ghost, no," said Sansa, but the wolf ignored her, intent on giving her new sworn shield a strong warning. Tendrils of saliva dripped onto Bronn's chin and he wisely released his dirk but Ghost snapped at him all the same and Sansa couldn't tell if he meant to scare Bronn or actually do him harm.

"Sandor, call him off," Sansa pleaded.

But the Hound wasn't paying her any heed either, instead watching Ghost's teeth skim Bronn's armor with fascination.

"Clegane, fucking call him off!" Bronn pleaded.

The Hound let Ghost continue for another few moments, devoid of emotion and as a result, Sansa couldn't decipher his reasoning for wanting to torment Bronn. Then, when Ghost's teeth came within a hair's breadth of Bronn's jugular, the Hound said, "Ghost, to me."

Ghost stepped off of Bronn and came around to the Hound's side, following Bronn with his eyes as the sellsword slowly sat up in anticipation of another attack. Bronn remained on his knees, waiting for the wolf to come at him again and Ghost's lips pulled back to expose his fangs, giving Bronn leave to scuttle back a few feet in the snow.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked the Hound. "You set 'im on me again?"

"I didn't the first time. I let him this time," said the Hound indifferently. "You're lucky I called him off."

"Am I supposed to expect this every time I come out here?"

"No," said Sansa. "He was defending his pack. When you assault or insult his pack, he corrects your error."

It was not entirely unheard of, given that he was the last of his original litter to remain with the Starks, for Arya's direwolf had adapted to the wild, leaving the albino runt as the final Stark direwolf. Ghost had lived with Jon both beyond the Wall and at Castle Black and had defended the Night's Watchmen as loyally as he would have defended his own kin. In the wake of Queen Daenerys's arrival, Jon had turned his attentions to both her and her much more powerful dragons and so Ghost was set aside, as horrible it was to say. Jon loved his wolf, but the wolf was simply not his main concern and so Ghost had sought the attention and affection of anyone who might offer it. Bran had taken his fall when Ghost was still a pup and so Ghost did not take to him. Arya hardly ever emerged from the armory and the few times Sansa had seen her with Ghost, the wolf only stayed by her side a moment before moving on.

As for Sansa, Ghost had accompanied her at Castle Black, on her way into the camp held by the knights of the Vale, within Winterfell when Jon went to meet Daenerys. He did not smother her in his presence, but he put in an appearance when needed. But he had trailed behind the Hound as of late more than he had with Sansa. She had seen him laying in the snow while the Hound worked the wall and was always there in the evenings when the Hound came to escort Sansa to the Great Hall. Ghost, for whatever reason that made sense to a direwolf, had accepted the Hound as part of his pack, perhaps because he sensed the man's isolation. In any case, the Hound did not turn him away, which could explain Ghost's loyalty to him now. Direwolves were intelligent creatures and Sansa had no doubt that Ghost knew when anyone posed a threat, physical, verbal, or otherwise to his chosen pack.

She felt some sense of pride in having visual proof of her claim to the Hound that he could call the North home. If a direwolf had taken to him, it was as good of a sign as any from the gods that he belonged in Winterfell.

"Well, bully for the bloody Hound, but I'll forsake me vows right this fucking second if he attacks me again for no good damn reason," said Bronn, and Sansa had never heard this particular tone from him before. He had faced a dragon headlong in battle, but a direwolf was a greater threat to him? Greater than losing his life in abandoning his post?

"He's here to remind you that I specifically gave you the order to guard your tongue," said Sansa. "Be kind and he will leave you alone."

"Doubt it," said the Hound. "He just doesn't like you."

"And how can you tell?" asked Bronn skeptically.

"Because _I _don't like you," answered the Hound simply as if that settled the matter. He gave Ghost a pat on the hindquarters and the wolf stalked away to hunt, though not before treating Bronn to one last snarl. Bronn did not move until Ghost was well out of sight and even then, allowed himself a few more moments on the ground before he stood up somewhat sheepishly to fall in line behind Sansa.

He sulked as they left the godswood and crossed the courtyard where Podrick was training with some of the younger lads who would remain behind to guard Winterfell as the majority of the Stark soldiers would be accompanying the queen's army to King's Landing.

"Bunch of green boys," observed the Hound. "They can fight mindless dead armies, but anyone who has a mind to attack the castle and take it will be able to with this lot defending the place."

"They look ready enough to me," said Sansa. "All of them fought the dead while better warriors fell, so they must have some worth."

"I'd expect that sort of comment from you," said the Hound.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"You've seen battle, seen men hacking away at each other, and still think it's just that and nothing more? That as long as you can swing a sword, you can fight? That sort of thinking is what makes most ladies utterly worthless in battle."

"Then help me," Sansa invited. "How does a lady not be utterly worthless?"

"By doing the type of shit your sister learned to do. You were a lady prisoner, protected by your status. She dressed as a boy to avoid being raped until she started to get the woman's figure and then I had to pass her off as my whore to keep busybodies and Lannister soldiers from trying to make off with her. They wouldn't mess with a woman whom they thought belonged to the Hound. That was the last I saw of her, but wherever she went, she learned to fight, probably had years of practice at it. You've got a few weeks before your queen marches you down to King's Landing and she's got men enough to keep you out of the battle."

"I thought I was safe here in my own home, but I was proven wrong twice. I'll never be any good with a weapon if someone doesn't teach me and even then, I could never best a proper swordsman, but I want to know how to handle a weapon rather than hope my opponent will run into it. You gave me your knife to cut my own throat because I'm defenseless without a knight to protect me."

"That's what he's for," said the Hound, jerking his head at Bronn. "If he does his job properly."

"Then I'll have him teach me," said Sansa. The Hound reacted as she hoped he would, resentfully. He didn't have much pride, but what little supply he did have, it came out when Sansa threatened to have other men do _his_ duty, which was doing absolutely everything for her that required a man's intervention.

"That might not be such a bad idea," said Bronn. "I trained Jaime Lannister to fight with the one hand he's got and he's still alive after a few battles, so the lady finds herself in good hands, my big friend."

"You'll keep your hands to yourself," the Hound growled. "Alright, girl, if you insist on making yourself look the part of the finest fool, I'll teach you some basic proper handling of a small blade. You can't wield a sword, devoid of muscle as you are."

Sansa didn't take the slight to her frame as an insult. Of course she didn't have a warrior's body, but she didn't care in the slightest. She had never wanted to learn to wield a weapon, not even after she had killed a wight, but waiting for the sign that she was to end her own life or be raped while she hid in her room was not something she was keen to repeat. She never wanted to feel so powerless as she had under Ramsay, yet the Hound's order to barricade herself out of sight and end her own life to avoid being harmed had filled her with a deep-rooted sense of insignificance. The queen herself had questioned Sansa's worth after because Sansa had hidden in the crypts while Daenerys Targaryen rode her noble dragon in battle.

How could she claim to be worthy enough to rule the North as an independent kingdom of the realm if the opposing queen had proven herself in battle and Sansa had not? She had to prove that she was worth more than a pretty face and an honorable title, even if she had to make a fool out of herself first.

"You'll want to do it out of sight, all the same," suggested Bronn. "Too many wankers will want to know why the crippled Stark lady is having the Hound train her to be slightly more useful than all the other women of the castle."

"It's only a broken leg," said Sansa, though Bronn had pointed out a hurdle she had not considered. With only a few weeks remaining until they took to the Kingsroad to journey south, there was no time for her to heal and if she delayed her training, she would never get the chance. She lifted her broken limb to prevent it from dragging on the ground beside her and tested her balance. "I will have the maester craft me a support to allow me to train."

"You'd be better off waiting or you'll likely twist your other ankle and your maester will have to fashion you a chair like your brother," said the Hound.

"I just need to know the basic proper handling and that doesn't involve fancy footwork, does it?" asked Sansa. "And if all else fails, I can learn from horseback."

"I can't figure out if you're daft or daring, m'lady," said Bronn. "Most girls make water when you even suggest that they might have to take up arms—"

"Lyanna Mormont was half my age, half my size, and she felled a dead giant as it crushed her body in its grasp. She was a child, the youngest casualty of the battle, and she had about as much training as I did, yet no one batted an eye when she demanded to be among her soldiers. The only difference between the two of us is that she was more eager to see battle and she never had the opportunity to feel worthless. I will never experience that again, of that I assure you, ser."

"It's not uncommon—"

"No, it's uncommon for women to fight at all. My former and first sworn shield was a woman, absolutely devastating with a sword, and a better warrior than most of the men here, if not all of them." Sansa gauged the Hound for reaction, but he had no shame in being bested by Brienne and no shame in having Sansa call Brienne a better fighter. "The queen took up a sword and fought beside her sworn shield Ser Jorah when she fell from her dragon. My sister trained across the Narrow Sea with the Faceless Men. And what have I done? Been a Lannister prisoner, been sold to the Boltons, been a damsel in need of saving every step of the way."

"There's no shame in that," said Bronn. "But if this is about your pride, I can tell you that more men have died for pride than anything else, so don't die from men's mistakes."

"My pride has nothing to do with it. I am determined to have some measure of control in my life, even if it means choosing to die in matching blades with my opponent rather than sitting down and begging him not to kill me. You knew me in King's Landing, ser, and you knew what a useless ninny I was. I can't afford to be that now."

Bronn relented, but with a request. "If you're determined to do this, I would be present to offer some suggestions. Your man here's as good a man as any to show you how to not stab yourself in the eye, but his style and mine are suited for different body builds and you're built more like me, so you wouldn't go amiss in learning from me as well."

"You don't exactly inspire confidence in your word choice," said Sansa, thinking of how brutal of a training session it would be with both the Hound and Bronn shouting at her.

"You charged me with protecting you. If you want me to do that, I need to know what you're capable of. If you're not satisfied with me, send me off, but once you see what I mean, you'll want me around to help mold you into a Northern warrior."

It was a disaster waiting to happen, but both men were among the best warriors Sansa knew and some of the last left alive. The Northern lords would not approve of their lady fashioning herself as a fighter, but they had nothing to say on the matter when Lyanna Mormont was the one doing the fighting, so they would hold their silence this time around.


	9. Chapter 9: Of Dragons and Direwolves

**JORAH**

Worthless as he felt as of late, Jorah found some purpose in assisting Lady Sansa, both by offering her his share of milk of the poppy and standing guard outside her door, not that the latter did her any good after Clegane and the sellsword had handled the majority of the work. Even making a move to warn the sellsword with steel had taken an enormous bit of effort and Jorah had collapsed into sleep that night after completely spending what little energy he had. His good deeds, however, were not rewarded the following morning, but reprimanded by his queen as he attended her while she took her breakfast in her room.

She noticed him leaning on the table laden with maps and correspondences and offered him a seat beside her, then ordered that he sit when he refused and nearly crashed into the neighboring chair.

"You told me you were on the mend and the maester confirmed it," said Daenerys with concern.

"I am. My wound is sealing nicely, but the rest of me seems reluctant to support me as I complete my daily tasks. Standing is a chore at times."

"Is there nothing that can be done? Surely the maester has something to speed the process along…"

"I had not thought to ask, khaleesi."

"You will ask when you leave me to finish my breakfast. I will not have you fainting away and falling from your horse at every turn during our journey south."

Jorah nodded in understanding of his queen's commands, but she did not look any happier for it. On the contrary, she was doing everything within her power to keep from scowling at him and he hadn't the faintest idea why.

"Have I done something to upset you, my queen?" he asked in puzzlement.

"You gave her your supply of milk of the poppy."

It was a mark of how furious she was that she refrained from addressing Lady Sansa thusly and simply referring to the woman as _her_.

"I did, does that anger you?"

"Why should it, you saw her in pain and did what you could. I would expect nothing less."

"But you did not expect it," said Jorah shrewdly. "You are upset with me."

"I am not upset with you, and if I were, it would not be over a deed worthy of a knight such as yourself."

"Then what?"

"You stood by and let that crude man belittle me and my claims."

_This _was what had her in a fit? The fact that Sandor Clegane put her in her place during a time of crisis? Jorah loved his queen dearly, but she still bristled like a spoiled child whenever someone with more seasons to their name rebuked her.

"Khaleesi, no man has ever been able to tame Sandor Clegane's tongue and it lashes with twice the ferocity when there are greater threats in the moment. I was in no position to question him. If I had spoken up, it would have made him angrier, so I kept my silence because defending your claim would have no effect on him. He was concerned only for your safety and Lady Sansa's, so talk of who would sit the Iron Throne mattered very little at the time, and I would agree with him. He knows you will sit the throne and he does not question your right to it, but that matters very little to a man who is battle ready. He did not protect you because you are the queen; he did it because you are a woman and he is a capable warrior. Believe me, the man is not a threat when it comes to doubting your lineage or your birthright."

"If he takes so little stock in who sits the throne, he _is_ a threat to me. A man who would deny the importance of a king or queen and state that he has allegiance to none is a man who is openly committing treason," said Daenerys coldly.

"He served under two kings, both of them unfit for the throne, and all he knew under them was cruelty. In his experience, loyalty cannot be given simply because a dictator demands it. It must be proven, and despite your success in battle, perhaps he does not yet see you as worthy of his loyalty."

"Then perhaps it is lucky that I do not require his loyalty to take what is mine."

"No, you do not, but I would not be so quick to judge him or label him a threat."

"Do you vouch for him as Tyrion so boldly did for the sellsword?"

"I do, because I fought with him beyond the Wall. I knew him by reputation only and he knew me by the same token, but he saved my life as I fell from Drogon's back. He saved the wilding Tormund Giantsbane as the wights attempted to drag the man beneath the ice. He is a guardian, now by his own choosing to the people he chooses instead of being forced into it. Lord Tywin Lannister enlisted him as the boy Joffrey's sworn shield, but you will notice that he no longer serves the Lannisters, and not because Joffrey is dead. He left long before that and from what I hear tell, he made himself Arya Stark's protector by no force of hand and it nearly killed him defending her. I would say that the man has earned a quiet life and the right to choose where he would live that life, though I will not disagree that he has a sharp tongue that could be curbed."

"He had best learn to speak appropriately by the time he next addresses me."

"He knows how; he just chooses not to."

"He will choose to or he will find himself speaking to my dragons and then we shall see if he would dare speak so boldly to them," said the queen without any real conviction.

"It might not be worth the effort, khaleesi. Your dragons seem to like him, or at least, Rhaegal does. And he's already been curt with them for making themselves too familiar with his, erm, lower bits."

"I am aware of this. I was only projecting," said Daenerys wearily. "I suppose it would be better to have a man who does not care either way who sits the throne rather than someone who prefers a man to a woman."

"He might be partial to a woman, given how the last two men treated him," speculated Jorah.

"He would be partial to Sansa Stark, given how he never leaves her side," responded the queen. "And she would be content to have the North break from the Seven Kingdoms if it meant she could claim the Northern throne. But she would have me unseated permanently and in no way a contender if someone more promising laid claim to it."

Jorah scooted his chair closer to her and pushed her uneaten plate of kippers away from her. "I know you do not find yourself in favorable company with Sansa Stark, but for the love you bear her brother, you are trying your best. That is all you can do and she must be willing to commit just as much effort to make peace."

"She would rather see Jon upon the Iron Throne."

Somehow, their conversations always brought up Jon Snow and it was difficult enough having to watch Daenerys and Ned Stark's baseborn son make eyes at each other when they thought no one was watching. And just now when she was brooding over the treatment of her by the Northerners, it didn't seem like quite the right time to present himself as a better candidate.

"Jon Snow has no claim to it, khaleesi."

"But he does," and here Jorah noticed the urgency in his queen's voice. She sat forward and took Jorah's hand, apprehensive of what she was about to tell him and struggling with whether or not she should tell him at all.

"What is it?" he prompted.

"If I tell you, you must swear to never utter it to another soul, not even let the words escape your mouth as you lay in bed alone. You must never repeat it, swear on it, Ser Jorah."

"You have my word, my queen. I will keep your silence."

Now gripping his hand rather painfully, Daenerys checked the window and the door as if expecting to see the castle's inhabitants lined up with their ears and noses pressed in on them to catch word of this secret she dared to utter.

"Jon Snow has the better claim to the throne because he is the true-born son of my brother Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark. My brother had his marriage to Ellia Martel annulled and married Lyanna in secret. She gave birth to a son whom she named Aegon Targaryen, true heir to the Iron Throne. She made her brother Ned Stark promise to hide the child from Robert Baratheon and so Ned Stark took the child as his bastard, Jon Snow. My father's heir was Rhaegar and his heir was his son Aegon, not me. I now have second-best claim to the throne."

Jorah did not need to ask how she knew this. If it was upsetting enough to her, it was undoubtedly true, but if he knew anything about Jon Snow, it was that the man lived by what he thought was right, bending the knee, offering Longclaw back to Jorah, offering his castle to Daenerys. If he truly was the rightful heir to the throne and knew it but had not yet spoken of it to anyone but the queen, he did not want it as badly as she did, if at all. The man loved Daenerys more than he cared to rule and if he would put aside his birthright to allow her free passage to ascend, she had nothing to fear.

He voiced these observations to her, but she was not to be comforted by his words.

"Even if Jon has no desire for the throne, there is still great danger in the truth of his name. If his sister knew, if the Northerners knew—"

"_I _am a Northerner," Jorah reminded her.

"You began my journey with me. These people still do not accept me as their queen even though I helped them defeat the greatest enemy known to man. The North still wants Jon Snow as their king, not the Targaryen from across the sea. If they knew that their chosen king has a claim to more than just the North, they would demand that he take what is his," Daenerys speculated fearfully.

"And if he did proclaim himself the rightful heir, he would have to take the throne by force from you with what army? With how many dragons against your own? Khaleesi, you love this man and if he loves you as much as you believe he does, he would let the entire world fall upon him to keep from betraying you. You have spoken to him on the matter and he gave no indication that he desired the throne, so if you cannot bring yourself to believe him, perhaps he is not the one who you should be doubting."

Here was a ready-made opportunity to cast Jon Snow's allegiance into question, drag his name through the mud, and thus pave the way to earning his queen's affection, but Jorah couldn't so readily stain the man's name when Jon had shown Jorah nothing but kindness. Jorah's own father had chosen Jon to wield the family sword because of the goodness Jeor Mormont saw in his steward. Jorah would be bringing further disgrace to his family if he allowed Jon Snow to be disgraced solely for Jorah's own purposes.

If it was destined that Jon Snow should not be with Daenerys Targaryen, it would happen without Jorah having a hand in it. Let the man cause his own downfall.

"I do not doubt that he loves me," saiid Daenerys. "But I fear that his loyalty to the family that isn't his might cause a rift between us. Would he tell them the truth because he believes that they deserve to know or would he keep his silence and betray their trust? Everything he has done has been for his family and a man who would risk everything for family is a dangerous one."

"You believe he will tell his family solely to have them know the truth, knowing it would accomplish nothing?"

"His brother knows. The boy who claims to be the Three-Eyed Raven, a seer of all things present and past. But his brother knew this before Jon did and did not tell anyone but him, so the boy is not the problem. Arya Stark is not the issue either. It is Sansa Stark. She alone dislikes me and does not trust me and would use Jon's true lineage to unseat me once I have my throne. She desires independence for the North once I remove Cersei from power and if she cannot have that, she will want a ruler who will be partial to the North, which would be Jon."

"Then give her no reason to doubt you. Earn her trust and her support by giving her the chance to represent the North. Give her an alternative to complete independence and show her the benefits of it."

"I should not have to earn what I have already achieved in ensuring that she draws breath with the help of my dragons and my army," said Daenerys scathingly.

"You have dealt with men and more men in your travels, khaleesi. Khals, slavers, the masters, all men who seek power over everything. You have dealt with but two women, one who is ruthless and has no right to the throne and one who wants what is best for her people after suffering as many hardships as you have. Surely, you can find some level ground while you both fight for the same side?"

"For as long as I seek my birthright and she seeks the North, we have no common ground."

She was not to be swayed in this decision to not put forth further effort to win over Sansa Stark, but Jorah suspected that having the Lady of Winterfell's support in the days to come would be imperative, so he would have to try a different approach from the opposing side and hope Jon's sister was not as stubborn as the queen.

/ /

As promised, he went to Maester Wolkan, asking him for some vial of miracle liquid to help him be able to withstand ten minutes on his feet without feeling the need to faint or vomit. The maester provided him with an energy replenishing concoction of the most foul nature that had to be taken sparingly, but would help him sleep soundly and have more energy upon rising, ensuring that he did not tire as easily. It did not solve the overall problem of still being useless in a potential fight, but Jorah would take it over being on the verge of needing Clegane to carry _him_ around as the man had been doing for Sansa Stark as of late.

He was able to follow Daenerys from room to room without needing to call in for Grey Worm to take over and his spirits were renewed in regaining some of his former strength. By night he slept heavily, sometimes revisiting images of piercing blue eyes and an undead rattle from a torn set of lungs but upon waking, his body was not weary from the nightmares. Occasionally the direwolf would visit him and make himself at home on Jorah's cot to keep out the cold as the nights sought to extend their freezing temperatures into every corner of the castle.

There was no talk of Jon Snow's true heritage or plotting against Sansa Stark. Daenerys kept herself busy playing out every possible scenario of the siege of King's Landing and Jorah need only offer her counsel when she asked for it. As always when she was confined to one place for too long, Daenerys grew restless and so Jorah anticipated that she would need to seek some solitude with her children and Jon Snow in the open skies.

He did not, however, anticipate that it would be him who spent his afternoon riding a dragon with the queen instead of Jon Snow. The one time he had was one time too many and he had no desire for a repeat experience but Daenerys was insistent that he accompany her to prove some point or another. He had to steel himself for the flight, shaking the numbness from his hands to enable a strong grip, for he doubted that his queen could both catch and hold him if he fell off this time.

Sensing his hesitation, Daenerys took both of his forearms in her grasp with a warm, inviting smile. "It is completely safe. There is no Night King to hurtle spears at us this time."

"I do not worry for that, khaleesi. Even if they were my dragons and I their father, the sky is no place for mankind. It was terrifying enough being on Drogon the first time with no choice but to ride him for survival. I have a choice this time and I am thinking that I chose wrong in allowing you to talk me into this."

"You have not given yourself time to learn to appreciate the wonders of flying."

"Those wonders are wasted on me, my queen. My place is on the ground where I can use the sword arm that saved both your life and mine on occasion."

"There is no place safer in battle than on a dragon, at least, for me. Cersei can concoct whichever sort of weapons she wants but the one she gave to Lady Sansa's sellsword to kill my children at the Battle of the Goldroad was not enough to even stop Drogon. The wound was artificial, even when shot from a great distance. Drogon took the scorpion bolt to his chest and was still able to fight and fly. He continued to carry me through to the conclusion of the battle. During the fight in the skies with the Night King, my fallen child and his new mount could not unseat me because Drogon is fully aware of me at all times upon his back."

"And if you fall in battle, what then?" asked Jorah. He had been unseated from the dragon's back and if not for the quick work of Clegane, he would have fallen into the frozen lake below just as Jon Snow had. With dozens-not just one-of Cersei's scorpions firing bolts at her, Daenerys might not be as successful as he had been in holding on.

"Drogon would never allow me to fall," said Daenerys confidently, stroking her favored dragon's enormous cheek.

"But he did, khaleesi. You fell from him during the battle."

"I was pulled by a wight and I was already near the ground. I have complete faith in my children, regardless of the circumstances."

There was nothing to be said on the matter. Daenerys remained firm on her stance concerning her dragons and always had, even if she was proven wrong.

She climbed onto Drogon's outstretched wing and found footholds amidst his scales to clamber onto his back, seating herself in her usual spot quite comfortably. Jorah waited for Drogon to give him the same assist and precariously mounted the wing, clambering onto the uneven texture of the plates along its neck with much fumbling. When he had finally made his way between the spines directly behind Daenerys, he gripped one of them firmly in both hands.

Every muscle in his body tensed as Drogon let his wings out to their full span and took a running start, tearing across the snowy ground with triple the speed of a horse. Jorah made certain that both of his feet were lodged into some sort of crevice along the dragon's back but now that Drogon was moving, he dared not change his grip.

They were airborne now and Jorah felt brave enough to look down to see how far up they already were, a decision he immediately regretted. Burying his face in the jagged plates between Drogon's spines, he tried to focus only on the rhythmic flapping but even that was not enough to make this adventure seem worthwhile as he waited for Daenerys to tell him why she insisted that he come flying with her.

The higher they climbed, the more frigid the air turned around them until Jorah felt the inside of his nose freezing over, an uncomfortable sensation that he had never grown used to despite living out most of his life in the North. The air was open, but his lungs compressed all the same with the effort to inhale so high up. When Jorah was starting to grow almost bored of the flight and found himself wishing only for solid ground and the chance to get a decent gulp of breath, he lifted his face from its place of protection to see that the overcast world of the North had disappeared to give way to sunlight high above the clouds that had formed over the fen. If he was not already short of breath, the sight would have stolen the last of it.

Daenerys reached back and touched his arm. "Watch, Ser Jorah."

She leaned sideways on the pretense of slipping from Drogon's back and the dragon lifted his wing to support her and catch her during her fall if she continued to go over the edge. She did the same on the other side and he matched his actions to prevent her from toppling over. Pulling him into a vertical ascent, she let go of his back and he immediately dropped, flattening himself so that she landed right back where she had been. Then, to Jorah's horror, she threw herself from the dragon's back.

There was no more air to take in, no way in which it could grow any colder. The world had fallen away and his queen with it. Jorah flung himself after her, not waiting, not thinking, not caring that he would die doing it.

He saw her swallowed by the clouds and an overpowering cyclone of air knocked him several meters out of the way of her descent as Drogon plunged after her. All three of them disappeared into the haze, emerging below the line back in the world of snow but now Jorah could see his queen clutched safely in her dragon's claw. Drogon flattened himself, tucking his wings against his body to shoot toward Jorah and in moments, Jorah was snatched out of the sky with the dragon's claws cocooning him. He heard his queen laughing.

Her hair whipped about her face but she let her arms spread wide, protected by her dragon's hold on her. A child's delight was to be seen on her face, something she had missed out on in having her vicious brother as her protector and then sold to the Dothraki while still so young. He had never seen her have what could be called _fun_ and flying through the air held in a dragon's claws with no view but the ground some many miles below was not Jorah's idea of fun in the least, but his queen was thoroughly enjoying herself, so he was content to watch her instead of focusing on how quickly Drogon seemed to be dropping, heading for the ground. The quick descent made Jorah verge on vomiting, for he felt as if he had left his stomach somewhere in the clouds.

As the ground grew closer, Jorah had no shame in clasping his eyes shut, having been brave for long enough to appease his queen. He could tell that Drogon was speeding toward the moor in dizzying circles as some sort of evasive maneuver, though Jorah wanted to know what exactly he was supposed to be evading. Perhaps he was only showing off for his mother or doing the movement for his mother's enjoyment. Either way, Jorah suffered for it, finally spilling out the liquid that had been bouncing around his stomach and throat for the past few minutes.

He heard the slowing of Drogon's wing beats and felt his knees touch snow before Drogon released him completely. Lowering his head to the ground, Jorah promised himself that he would not let Daenerys ever talk him into riding one of her dragons ever again. His knees were wobbly and he did not trust himself to try and stand while they still knocked together. His heart would not slow to a pace that would support him. Frost on his lips and eyelashes seemed unbearably cold now and he had the very strong urge to make water.

"You handled that tremendously well in spite of how things concluded," said Daenerys, kneeling in the snow banks beside him and rubbing soothing circles on his back. "Most people vomit well before the point that you did."

Jorah could count the number of people who had ridden a dragon on one hand and he only recalled Clegane being the one to empty his stomach when Drogon set them down south of the Wall. Tormund had fallen shakily to his knees and Beric Dondarrion had swayed slightly, walking like a drunk man while Jorah slid into the sand below Eastwatch and waited to stop seeing double all while listening to Clegane heave not ten feet away, bringing up food from two days prior that he had not managed to pass.

"Jon lasted about two minutes before he pitched all over Rhaegal's back and Tyrion only had to climb up to the wing to change his mind and lose the contents of his stomach. You almost reached the end."

"Forgive me for not seeming too pleased by that feat," said Jorah with a moan. He sat back on his heels to inhale a few gulps of breathable air and then shook his head at Drogon who had curled his neck around the two of them to keep out the winds. "You could have told me he would catch you and not bothered to lend harm to my ailing heart, khaleesi."

"You would not have believed him capable of it if you had not seen it. But you didn't even wait to see what he would do before you plunged after me. What did you hope to achieve?"

She was calling his actions stupid, if not giving them the name of it and he had to admit to himself that of all the foolhardy things he had done in his life, this was by far the most reckless.

"I wasn't thinking," he said shamefully. "I only saw you falling away and did not want to be sitting on Drogon's back when I thought you would be nothing more than crushed remains upon the moors."

"You either thought you could somehow save me, or you did not want to continue living if I didn't." Now she was accusing him of something, but not with anger. He had shown her more dedication than any man who had come under service, but this demonstration truly jarred her. It was one thing to contract Greyscale whilst attempting to earn back her favor. It was one thing to ignore his banishment by returning to her to save her time and again. But to launch himself into the air as he saw her disappear into the clouds, knowing that he would not live through his actions, was not something she could comprehend. Jorah wondered if even Jon Snow would have done such a thing for her but then again, Jon Snow was not stupid enough to launch himself off of a flying dragon.

Drogon dipped his head down between Jorah and Daenerys, casting a watchful eye over Jorah before snorting out one nostril and Jorah got a faceful of dragon breath which caused his hair to stand up on end. The dragon moved on, leaving Daenerys grinning in his wake.

"He approves of your noble deed, Ser Jorah," she teased. For now, she would not breach the subject, but it was leverage that Jorah had to use in the future and he would take full advantage of it if possible. He had done something so astonishingly dense that it might be taken as dumb bravery and he felt worse and worse about it the more he lingered on it, but his actions had certainly given the queen something to consider on his behalf and we would take that over nothing.

Missandei was there to greet them when they returned to the castle and Daenerys dismissed Jorah to wash up before supper. He went to draw a pail of water from the well but found his way blocked by Tormund Giantsbane who was giving him one of those intense stares that suggested he was about to ask something outlandish, kill him, or tackle him. Jorah was in the process of trying to figure out which when the wildling took him by the shoulders and ruffled his already mussed hair.

"So, you've ridden a dragon from the top and bottom now."

"It was not intentional to have Drogon carry me, if that's what you mean," said Jorah warily.

"You mean you fell," observed Tormund.

"I meant to."

"You fell off…on purpose?"

"More or less," replied Jorah through his teeth.

"You're one mad fucker."

Jorah would have labeled it devotion, but he didn't see the need to explain himself to the wildling when the man did not harbor the same sort of love for anyone as Jorah did for his queen.

"You say he fell off on purpose?" asked a gruff voice, that of Sandor Clegane coming around to meet them after having just been visiting the privy.

"That's what I saw, that's what he says," said Tormund. "I was standing right here, taking a piss and I saw the dragon dip down out of the clouds. It had the Dragon Queen in one claw and snatched up Ser Mormont here before he could hit the ground and splatter like a man's guts when you take an axe to them. I thought I'd been dreaming, but Mormont comes back and tells me outright that he threw himself off the dragon."

Clegane looked Jorah up and down, silently judging him. "What gave you that bright idea?"

"You should have no concern over my reasons," said Jorah, now thoroughly regretting his actions in every sense. Daenerys knew Drogon would catch her. Drogon knew what to do when his mother fell from his back. And anyone who happened to be watching saw Jorah idiotically fling himself into the air for apparently no reason. Of all the brainless things to do…

"Did your queen tell you to do that? Pitch yourself off her dragon so it could practice catching people?" asked Clegane.

"She would never ask such a thing of anyone and she is your queen as well," Jorah reminded him. He spoke out for Clegane when Daenerys questioned his purpose, but he would not stand for Clegane to insult her out of earshot.

"I don't care whose queen she is; if she told _me_ to intentionally fall off a dragon, I'd tell her to go fuck herself."

"You guard your tongue when you speak about her. I'll not stand to let you besmirch her name simply because you favor whichever ruler your Lady of Winterfell tells you to favor."

"No one tells me who I favor because I don't fucking care who's king or queen. They're all the same, bunch of prissy shits."

"You're alive to insult her thanks to her good graces and sense of mind to help those in need, unlike Cersei—"

"I didn't say I favored Cersei, did I?"

"You're a man of the Seven Kingdoms; that makes you a man under the rule of the rightful queen and if you don't back Daenerys Targaryen, you are in open rebellion against her."

"And a fucking lot of good I'll do if I had a mind to challenge her. Put your sword where your mouth is, Mormont; it's worth more than your words."

Jorah flexed his right fist in anticipation of a skirmish that was sure to come. "You are the most disagreeable person I have ever had the displeasure to meet, Clegane. You can't hold your tongue for five seconds, can you?"

"I don't need people to like me to live the way I've been living."

"You seem pretty miserable, the way you've been living," said Tormund thoughtfully.

"You fuck off," said Clegane bitingly.

"What does it _matter_ what I did involving the dragon? Why is it cause for you to become so hostile?"

"Because you're a seasoned warrior, a lucky bastard who's brushed shoulders with death more times than most and then you purposely fall off of a fucking dragon _why_? Wasn't fun enough the first time?"

Jorah did not dignify the comment with a response, but Clegane seemed to guess it anyway. He had a way of reading the words people left unsaid better than the ones spoken aloud.

"Tell me you didn't do it for her."

"I did it for the pure experience of it," Jorah snapped. "I highly recommend you give it a try; it's exhilarating and it clears the senses."

"Anyone who does what you just did doesn't have an inkling of sense left in him. You're just another dumb shit who does whatever his cock tells him to do if it means getting closer to a woman he can't have."

If possible, Jorah would have rescinded his support of Clegane to the queen right there and then. The man was a sour, bitter, piece of work and any deference Jorah had left for him was on its way into becoming nonexistent. One could only go so far to defend a man who proved every day that he did not deserve it.

"Clegane, for the respect I hold for you in saving my life, let that be the last thing you say on the matter," Jorah told him in no uncertain terms.

"And if I don't, what do you plan to do, bleed on me?"

"You have no place to scoff at a man for what he would do for a woman when I could point out to you what I have observed with you and a certain lady."

Now he had Clegane's attention and the latter's face went completely lax in forewarning. "You had best not say another word, Mormont."

"Neither should you."

Tormund waited to see which of them would triumph over the other, if this sparring of words would lead to fisticuffs. If it did, Jorah would lose, not only because of his weakened state, but because it was the bloody Hound he was facing. The man's fist was nearly the size of half of Jorah's head and if Jorah got in the way of it, half of his teeth would end up littered on the ground if his skull didn't cave in first.

Jorah had no desire to fight Clegane under any circumstances and certainly did not want to kill him, but he did find quite an appealing urge to give the man a good punch to the mouth to shut him up for once. He wagered on how long it would take the bigger man to pin him down and if he could counter that time with his speed against Clegane's strength.

Something furry and warm beneath Jorah's hand nudged at him and he looked slightly down to see Ghost licking at his lips. The direwolf walked out of Jorah's reach and pushed his muzzle into Clegane's groin in an attempt to make the man step back as if discouraging him from seeking a fight that would benefit no one. Clegane held onto Ghost's face, trying to push him away.

"You hiding something tasty down there, Clegane?" asked Tormund with a chuckle.

"Piss off, wildling. And you," Clegane gave up in his attempts to remove Ghost from his groin and instead placed his hands irritably upon his hips. "What in the shit do you want, wolf?"

"He's telling you that you'd best not start fighting over something so stupid as whatever it was you were about to fight over," said Arya Stark, appearing beside Tormund as if by magic. "Direwolves know the difference between real danger and petty arguments."

"He's not that smart," said Clegane, frowning at the wolf.

"He's smarter than you. If you don't believe me, try to hit Ser Jorah, go on," invited the girl.

"Gladly." Clegane feinted and moved around the direwolf, closing in on Jorah.

Jorah was on the verge of protesting the unfairness that Clegane had a free swipe at him while also attempting to sidestep the attack, but Ghost's jaws closed around Clegane's arm, not deep enough to break skin, but strong enough to hold him. The wolf dug his paws into the ground, tugging back to prevent Clegane from advancing and the bigger man stopped, sticking his fingers between his sleeve and the wolf's mouth to make it release him.

"Now, you try," said the girl to Jorah.

"I believe he knows what he's doing," said Jorah.

"I don't care if you know. _He's _not fully convinced." She nodded at Clegane.

Suspecting the outcome before it happened, Jorah took a step in toward Clegane in full sight of the wolf and then made a rather exaggerated swing at the other man. Ghost let go of Clegane to trap Jorah's arm in the same hold, pinching at his skin but not seeking to puncture. Jorah backed off quickly and Ghost released him, waiting to see if either of them were still of a mind to fight each other. When neither of them reacted, Ghost padded away, leaving them to marvel at his intelligence.

Tormund appeared disappointed that there had not been a good scrap to spectate at. No doubt he was used to even minor problems being solved this way beyond the Wall. "The wolf's taken to the pair of you almost as much as he takes to his true master," he said in reluctant fascination.

"Direwolves are finicky," said the girl. "Mine was friendly to my family and no one else. My brother Rickon's was the wildest and would snap at anyone that wasn't him. My brother Robb's was partial to my mother over my father. My sister's was the smallest and very tame, very approachable. Ghost only ever liked Jon and me until they both went to the Wall. There, I hear that he took Jon's friends under his protection as loyally as he took to Jon. The only explanation for why he's found an interest in the both of you is that you earned it. So you had best mind him if he thinks that you're a pair of idiots squabbling over gods-know-what when there's a war happening."

The girl's statement made everything not directly related to the war seem irrelevant which meant that Jorah's affection for the queen was irrelevant, his defense of her to Clegane, his willingness to die for her, all was meaningless until the war was declared over. It was not a comforting notion, even if it had some truth to it.

"Stop sneaking up on me like that," called Clegane as the girl took her leave.

"Stop scaring so easily," she hollered back.

Clegane huffed and smoothed out the wrinkles left by the direwolf's grip on him. He turned to Jorah with a gesture that invited him to restart the argument. "Are we done here?"

"I would have a word with you," said Jorah pointedly. Tormund did not move, watching the two of them and waiting for the conversation to resume. Jorah cleared his throat but Tormund still did not walk away giving Jorah cause to be blunt with him. "I wish to speak to Clegane alone, without you around."

Looking extremely put out, Tormund relented. "You build up what promised to be an interesting fight and then turn a man away when it might come to light again. You are a cold man, Jorah Mormont."

With the wildling gone, Jorah beckoned that Clegane follow him to a place out of the center of the courtyard where they would not attract any more attention than they already had. It was a difficult thing to do, for Jorah did have pride where other men did not, but not enough that he could not admit to a fault. It was admitting the fault to Clegane who always had to have the last word that was so challenging.

"I apologize for the manner in which my words were delivered," he said. "My first instinct was to defend the queen's honor. As for why I found myself toppling from the back of a dragon, it might not have been what you would have done for the woman you protect—"

"It's definitely not what I would have done because I'm not a fucking idiot."

"But you're devoted to her protection, as am I to the queen's. We do things without thinking for those in danger, don't we? What you did for me, for Tormund, what Thoros did for you. That's not worth bickering over."

"It's not," Clegane agreed.

"So can we concur to not bicker about it? I have respect for you, that was not a lie, but if you would not stand to let someone who does not know Sansa Stark speak ill of her, you cannot fault me for coming to the queen's defense when you did the same."

"I could, but it would only give me cause to pummel you in the face and I don't particularly like you, but there's worse than you and you'll need your face to deal with them if you're going to war with your queen."

"And you aren't?" questioned Jorah in surprise. He would have thought that wherever Sansa Stark went, so would go Clegane.

"It's not my war. I have one war left and it's not with Cersei."

"That is not a war you can win, Clegane, not alone."

Clegane sounded resigned when he answered, as if he had considered the probability of his survival and come to terms with the low chances of it. "As long as he doesn't win either, I can die happy with that."

Jorah wanted to point out how very stupid it would be for Clegane to have come this far and survived so much only to die at the hands of his brother because of a grudge he could not let go, but he thought better of it. Dying in a battle of brothers was better than dying by deliberately launching oneself off of a flying dragon and Jorah could not judge Clegane if he chose the former.


	10. Chapter 10: Built By Killers

**SANSA**

She had not been so sore since the morning after she jumped from the ramparts with Theon Greyjoy to flee Ramsay. Then, it had been from the hard fall, from the miles and miles upon trekking through the snow, from the freezing river. Now, it was from endlessly swinging her arms and moving about whichever way the Hound and Bronn told her to with her limited mobility. They had tried both the Hound's approach with wide swipes from her sparring sword and Bronn's approach in quick little stabs but given that she was walking about on one good leg and one wooden contraption Maester Wolkan had designed for her, neither of her mentors' instructions were very useful.

She had no clothing besides her dresses and so Jon had lent her one of his tunics while Sansa had attire similar to Arya's made to allow her free movement during her sessions. Both the Hound and Bronn donned wooden training armor reinforced with boiled leather while she was fitted with a light replica so as to accommodate her breasts. The three of them looked quite the sight once they began the morning after Bronn had taken his vows.

Her bad leg was locked into what was essentially a wooden casing that took the weight from her ankle and distributed it elsewhere. Her thigh muscles carried most of the weight but the clunky nature of her wooden cast made her clumsy, making it impossible to take up a proper defensive stance. Her failures were so monumental that after four days, she could barely hold the sword from the blisters along her palms and her legs were both burning from being overworked and smacked at whenever she missed her target. The Hound and Bronn were not cruel in their delivery, but for every failed lunge, for every time she left her back unguarded or made a stupid mistake that would be costly if it were a real battle, they whacked her on the back of the legs to mimic a kill thrust—and Sansa had been killed several dozen times already.

Her determination was no match for her inexperience and she suffered greatly for it. Even Ghost who had come around a handful of times to watch her appeared to judge her ineptitude. It was a lucky thing that she had chosen the godswood to train and stationed guards to refuse anyone entrance within because she did not need her titanic failure displayed for all of Winterfell to see.

They had taken the noon meal in the godswood, the three of them covered in sweat but she the only one with nothing to show for it, leaving her with no appetite at all. Bronn finished off her uneaten portion and then took his turn as the standby, offering advice as she matched against the Hound. Her latest task was to try and knock the Hound backward whether by pure force or in delivering an unsuspecting blow, but she thought that was a grossly unfair thing to ask of her when a full grown man would have difficulty accomplishing such a thing.

Sansa struck out at him with her sparring sword and it bounced off of the Hound's training armor with hardly a sound.

"You try hitting like that when a man's coming at you and you might as well lay down and tell him to kill you with your own sword," he said, unimpressed.

He took her arm, swung it back, and brought the full force of his strength down upon himself to where the metal made a satisfying _thwack_ on the wooden protection. Numbed by the strength needed to deliver such a blow, Sansa felt her arm tremble in his grasp.

"Feel the power in that blow? Feel how much it took to strike out at a man and stop him? If you don't strike with that much every time, you're going to be the prettiest dead woman on the battlefield, if you ever get that far. You need to mean it, girl. Try again and I want you to _hit _me. Try to knock me down."

"But I don't want to knock you—"

"I don't care what you want. You knock me down, or I'll knock you on your arse, damned if you're a lady or not."

The Hound planted himself before her as if expecting a bull to charge at him and Sansa did not even possess a quarter of such an animal's strength. She stepped closer clumsily on her wooden leg and dug her heel into the ground, winding her sword back. Imagining that she was trying to sever a head from an extremely broad pair of shoulders, she swung—and it had no impact on the Hound whatsoever.

He did not look disappointed; he had no discernible look to him at all, which was worse. She wanted to please him, show him that she could be just as useful as Arya, even if she wasn't as skilled, but his reluctance to teach her might have stemmed from him secretly wanting her to remain the damsel she had always been. Perhaps he took some pleasure in protecting her and her sudden desire to better herself was not to his liking. Then she had to remind herself that what he wanted was invalid.

She tried again, this time putting a small grunt into her efforts. The Hound was immovable as his brother, the Mountain. Again, she came at him, determined for something other than discomforting failure to happen today.

"If you're going for ferocity, you have to get _angry_, girl," advised the Hound as he watched her screw up her face into something akin to what she thought warriors looked like when they killed. She had seen the Hound's lips pull back in a snarl when he killed the men who would have raped her and she wanted to recreate that look, but was not succeeding.

"I am angry," she insisted. "I'm angry that I'm not making any progress."

"Wrong sort of angry, then," said the Hound unhelpfully.

"Thank you, that was enlightening," she snipped.

"You need to get angry _at_ 'im, m'lady," called Bronn. "To hurt what it is you're facing, you have to _want_ to hurt it, and you still don't want to hurt 'im."

That was true; she didn't want to cause injury to the Hound after he had already taken several during the Great Battle and then more from Bronn. Even though any injury she could deliver would be nothing but a gnat bite to him, she had no desire to give him something that would prevent him from fighting at his best.

"That was advice to move you to action, not stand there gaping at me, now come on," said the Hound, tapping her shoulder with his own sparring blade.

Sansa tried to think of something he had done in the past to anger her to the point where she had wanted to hit him. When he admonished her attempts to thank him for saving her life, when she had made Bronn her sworn shield, when he had belittled her as she crawled from the wreckage of the crushed wall. She tucked her sword back over her shoulder again and let out as fierce of a battle cry as she could muster, smacking the Hound across the breastplate with a dull _thunk_.

From behind her, she heard a wheezy cackling that gave way to unabashed, raucous laughter. Bronn was holding his stomach, bent double and nearly crying tears of mirth at her expense, for which she was not pleased. She waited for him to get his unearned merriment out of his system, fixing him with a stern glare.

"Forgive me, m'lady," he said when he emerged from his laughing fit. "I haven't had a good laugh in ages."

"My struggles to learn swordplay should not amuse you, Ser Bronn."

"T'wasn't your bladework that got the laugh from me, it was that sound you made, whatever the hells that was. Armies will tremble in their boots when they hear that."

Wondering if her cry of attempted rage was really as non-threatening as Bronn made it sound, Sansa turned to see how the Hound had reacted to it and he was chewing on the inside of his cheek, a telltale sign of him trying to conceal his amusement. Any moment of levity was gone in an instant as he knocked her blade aside with his hand to step in closer to her.

"Your sister killed her first man with a knife and you can't even hit an unmoving target."

"I have one good leg—"

"And you're older. She was a child still when she made all three of the kills she collected while we traveled together."

"She had a knack for it and I don't—"

"Apparently. You should leave the fighting to those who know how to do it. We leave the talking to those who are good at it and nothing else."

Being called worthless by the man who had told her to pick up a sword and then tried to get her to back out when she actually considered it was maddening and hurtful. She did not need constant praise to respond well to the training, but his rapid-fire degradation of her only made her want to hurt him in the same way, with words. But he was not letting her speak her piece and even then, she wasn't sure what she would say to him. She only had her sparring sword at her disposal, so she decided to use it in a way he had not taught her.

She turned her sword with the flat of the blade parallel to the ground.

"I'll give you one more try for the day, and if it's as successful as your eighty-four previous attempts, we're done. If you haven't gotten it by now, you aren't going to get it because some people aren't built for swinging swords. Those people die quicker."

"You haven't tried her with a dagger yet," Bronn pointed out.

"If a man gets close enough to her that she needs a dagger to protect herself, she's already dead," said the Hound.

Sansa lowered her sword as if in defeat and then yanked it hard upward, smashing the broad side of it against the Hound's groin. He doubled over with a shout and she finished him off by striking him across the back hard enough that a small chink of armor split off. He hit the ground on his stomach, still nursing his abused crotch and slowly rolled onto his back. His leg sideswiped both her leg and her wooden replacement, cutting out all means of support from underneath her and as a result, she landed hard across his stomach, feeling as if someone had taken a baton to her belly. Both wounded and holding their injured areas, Sansa and the Hound groaned and little else as they tried to regain breath.

It was Bronn who pulled her up by the back of her armor straps and she pushed off of the nearest bit of the Hound she could—which happened to be his manhood. He swore at her and placed both his hands over the area to shield it from further harm.

"Seven fucking hells, girl, enough!"

Sansa could not apologize for what she had done, for she was too embarrassed to even address the fact that her hand had unintentionally been on his manhood and she had not mistaken the size of it, even at a flaccid stage. Burning at the ears and mortified, she let Bronn set her upright as he talked over the Hound's moans. "Wouldn't have expected that from a lady, but it served its purpose."

"It was a cheap shot," growled the Hound, protecting his crotch as he stood up. "And one that I didn't teach her."

"Don't need to be taught to hit a man in his balls and by the looks of it, she got you awfully hard to bring down a man of your size."

"If you find it so amusing, you can let her practice on you."

"She had a go at your prick because you were being a prick to her. You made her mad."

"That was the point."

With his hands on his thighs, the Hound looked like a man about to be violently ill and from what Sansa had seen and heard of men who had taken direct hits to their groin, they often were left dizzy, nauseous, and disoriented afterward so that she almost allowed herself to have pity for him. He had purposefully driven her to anger to get a reaction and thus action, as he had when she lay trapped beneath the rubble of the broken wall. As a last-ditch attempt to bring out the Stark warrior within her, he had unleashed his cruel tongue on her and it had worked, though not in the way he had intended.

She would earn his forgiveness later over supper but for now, she decided it was time to switch out her mentors and battle Bronn to avoid whatever severe telling off the Hound had in store for her.

Bronn swapped her short sword for a dagger and faced her with his own armor, inviting her to take a free stab at him with the dagger still in its sheath. Remembering that the Hound had told her to drive her arm forward with full force to ensure the blade stuck, she stepped with her good leg and caught Bronn in the ribs in what surely would have been a mortal blow if it had been real.

Her confidence in her victory was short-lived, however, for Bronn caught the pleased look on her face and admonished her for it. "No dumb fucker's gonna be standing there with his cock hanging out and his mouth hanging open for you to stab 'im, m'lady. You can stab with force, good for you, but it won't be worth a damn if you can't do it in motion when someone's coming at you with the intent to kill you. Try it again and this time, I'm comin' at you hard."

Sansa had almost no time to prepare as Bronn backed up a few paces and then took a running start at her. He collided with her well before she could even lift her dagger into a defensive position and both of them went down with him driving the air from her lungs as he landed atop her. The snow absorbed most of the impact of the fall, but she still had another body on her and his weight was crushing her.

He did not lay atop her for long, though, for the Hound had swooped in and delivered a vicious kick to Bronn's side, using the toe of his boot to push him off of her. He then stomped his foot down on Bronn's chest. "Training her isn't an excuse to throw yourself on her, you shit."

"I thought she'd move," said Bronn, sounding genuine in his insistence. "You were lying in the snow with her not four minutes ago."

"Don't make me explain how that was different to you, sellsword. Your job is to defend her, not find an opportunity to put your hands on her."

Sansa had not thought that to be Bronn's intention at all. In fact, once he had landed on her, she had noticed that his hands were in the snow, not on her. And it shamed her to hear the Hound accuse Bronn of becoming too familiar with her body right in front of her.

"Do it again and you'll be needing to find some way to hold your cock to take a piss with no hands."

The Hound stepped off of Bronn, coming to Sansa and offering out his hand to her. She didn't take it, coming onto her good knee and then facing a conundrum on how to stand with the use of one leg and refusing to accept help. She was saved the embarrassment of remaining in the snow by Bronn who came from behind and lifted her once again by her armor straps.

"I do not appreciate your assumptions based toward Ser Bronn," she told the Hound, brushing snow from the back of her neck where it had leaked down into her tunic. "His approach was not exactly helpful, but he had no ulterior motives when he knocked me down."

"That's not what it looked like from a bystander point of view," the Hound insisted.

"I would know since I was the one underneath him and besides using me as his cushion from his fall, he never touched me. I cannot practice with him if you abuse him."

"He's only doing part of my job, m'lady," said Bronn with a rather wicked and all-knowing smirk. "'Course, if he had been the one to fall on you, we'd be having an entirely different conversation on whether to bury or burn you because he'd have killed you."

"No," said Sansa firmly as the Hound started forward. "I warned both of you once already that I would not tolerate your arguments."

"You're overreacting, my friend," said Bronn, smartly using Sansa as a shield in case the Hound decided to come at him anyway. "Even if I wanted something from her—which I definitely don't—would I be stupid enough to cup a feel of her with you watching?"

"I never underestimate a man's potential to be a stupid cunt," said the Hound.

"Sandor—" began Sansa.

"If you're too dense to figure out the game he's playing, you shouldn't have a blade in your hands."

"You're determined to punish him for something he hasn't done while I might add that his tactics have been more useful than yours."

"Is that the case?" The Hound took a step in toward Bronn and Sansa pushed out at him.

"I said no."

"I may be a dog, but all dogs disobey commands from time to time, girl, now get out of the way."

Sansa pushed him again and he pretended that it had some sort of effect on him purely for her benefit but as he took a step back to consider her, his sword came out. Unprepared for her boldness, Sansa reached behind her and pulled Bronn's sword from his scabbard, swinging through to clash steel with the Hound. He blocked her blow as if he had expected it and by the narrowed look in his eyes, he _had_ been expecting this—and he was pleased.

"_Now _the she-wolf appears. Where's she been hiding all day?"

_Come at me_," his eyes invited. _Show me what you can do._

The sword was heavy in her hands and it took enormous effort to lift it into any position worthy of defending herself but she was adamant about proving to the Hound that she deserved the right to wield steel. Her blows were slow, easily defendable, and predictable, but she brought the sword down every time as furiously as she had the first. She felt the power in the Hound's blocks and marveled at how she never could have predicted that she would one day be matching blades with him.

Her final swing missed him completely and her wooden appendage did not place properly, sending her pitching forward into the snow but the Hound dropped his sword to throw out his arm and catch her on it. Her stomach collided with the solid muscle of his forearm and he righted her.

He took a menacing step inward to prompt her to fight back. Her arms cried out for respite, her muscles contracted, unable to support the sword any longer and with one final swing, she dropped her stance, gasping out for breath. But the Hound wasn't done with her. He let her see him coming, winding his sword up over his shoulder to bring it down over her head. She dropped to her knees to allow herself more time, lifting Bronn's sword across her body and catching the Hound's attack, hilt to hilt with a glorious ringing that might as well have been the tower bells announcing a war-time victory.

For a moment, she and the Hound were locked in both combat and gaze, his sweat dripping down the end of his nose to land upon her breastplate. She did not know what she read there, perhaps pride, but he was doing a fair job of hiding his true feelings from her. He withdrew his blade and sheathed it, inviting her to do the same, but she only dropped it, hands upon her knees.

His fingers curled under the front of her armor, his nails brushing the top of her breasts beneath the leather as he lifted her and set her on her foot and wooden support with an approving nod.

"That's enough for today," he said, untying the straps that held his armor in place. He wriggled out of the thing, set it in the hollow of the tree to be used on the morrow, and came around behind Sansa to start undoing her straps as well. He pulled out the knots, bringing the armor uncomfortably tight against her chest with every tug.

Bronn picked up his sword from the snow and dried it on his breeches.

"Ser Bronn, I value your honesty. Would you label today as a success?" she asked.

"I'd label it as somethin', m'lady. Definitely somethin', but I can't say what."

"Words of value, those are," said the Hound, placing the iron shackles around Bronn's wrists, as it was time for the latter to return to the barracks under lock and chain. With Bronn walking in front, they trekked back to the castle boundaries and handed him over to the Stark guards, pretending that their appearance covered in a fine layer of sweat and grime did not attract unwanted attention.

"Would you take your supper with me privately?" she asked the Hound when Bronn had left them.

She fully expected that he would decline in favor of dining alone as he was prone to doing but was properly surprised when he agreed with a silent nod. His mood was a strange thing today, for she had not been quite sure if she had angered him or if he had played the part to incite the proper reaction from her.

It had been hard work scrubbing the toil of the day from her body when her hands were unwilling to cooperate in using the lye soap to scrub at her face but her leg was covered in bruises that she was now proud to bear after they led her to this outcome. She relived her battle with the Hound, chest swelling when she remembered the feel of invincibility that had coursed through her when her sword stopped his, not that he would have intentionally sliced her in half. In fact, she had to wonder what he would have done if she had not been able to block his blow, but she suspected that he had enough years of practice under his belt to be able to stop the sword just shy of her head if he had seen that she was not going to parry him.

Eira came to help do up the last bit of her dress since Sansa still did not allow her handmaiden to see her unclothed. The girl took Sansa's filthy borrowed training clothes, promising her that her requested garments were nearly finished, and set two places at Sansa's desk, drawing up a second chair for the Hound. Sansa used her crutch to limp across the room, having removed her leg from the wooden casing as it was now inappropriate. As she took her place, she suddenly wondered if she was dressed properly, too done up or perhaps not enough. She fussed over her hair, combing out the knots in it that she had not taken care to smooth out. There was still soot beneath her nails and she had not bathed thoroughly enough or taken care to open a window to clear out the scent of bodily aromas.

But this was the Hound she was to sup with, not a noble lord or lady who cared about such things. He had never cared for them before and he certainly would not start now, so why was she in such a fidgety state, worrying about his opinion of her?

He let himself in with a brief knock and checked the fireplace, easing when he saw that she had not lit one in memory of how he disliked having one about unless absolutely necessary. He had not bathed as she had, but at least had the decency to wipe his face and wash his clothes, for they were the only set he had.

Now came the awkward interaction where she invited him to sit as if they still stood on formality because it was expected of her. She had asked him here before to eat with her and he had stormed out, he had stood guard here through the night, he had been in here more often than even Jon had, so he was no stranger to the place, but now that they were both dressed for an evening of polite company, Sansa was unsure how to proceed. So torn over the appropriate way to address him now, she had forgotten to stand when he entered the room and now thought it would be noted as a mistake.

He solved her conundrum by going to her cabinet as he had before and pouring himself a nearly overflowing goblet of wine, then plopping into the seat across from her and cutting himself a large portion of goose liver, giving her invitation to do the same. She poured herself a generous amount of wine, not that she intended to drink much (she had lost the taste for it after seeing how it affected Cersei during the Battle of the Blackwater).

The Hound tore into his meat with no subtlety and she realized only after she had been staring at him for a solid minute that she had yet to touch her own food. Her hands would not form properly over her utensils, making even the task of feeding herself a chore. She tried to discreetly handle her fork so she could at least skewer a potato wedge and then stuff it in her mouth, chewing hurriedly before the Hound noticed but his eyes were fixed on her plate, giving her no hope of hiding her inelegance from him. He stabbed at his own food almost contemptuously and Sansa finally admitted defeat, setting her fork down and staring dismally into her uneaten food.

"Not hungry?" he asked teasingly, knowing exactly why she was not eating.

"Rather, I can't hold my fork long or well enough to navigate it to my mouth," said Sansa.

"If you're hungry enough, you'll find a way to eat, even if it hurts."

"I am hungry and it doesn't necessarily hurt; my hands just won't work long enough for me to grasp my utensils."

"Then fuck 'em. Eat like you mean it, etiquette be damned."

For him to even suggest that she take to her food with her fingers and eat like some sort of animal was appalling, but who was there to judge her for doing such a thing? Certainly not him; he encouraged it. And of all the things she had done lately, eating with her fingers was the least scandalous of them all.

She stuck her hand into her bowl, fished about for a piece of turnip and plopped it into her mouth to an appreciative grin from the Hound.

"You're full of surprises today, little bird."

"Hardly, I'm just hungry," said Sansa, tipping her bowl to her mouth and taking care not to slurp.

"I'm not talking about the food, girl. I mean the fury I saw in you."

"I don't understand why you couldn't have just told me to hit you harder than I already was and then we could have dispersed with the fuss of making me grow angry with you," said Sansa dismally. "I wouldn't have hit you…where I did."

"I've been kicked there often enough," he said dismissively. "No, you hit me there because you wanted to cause me pain and you used the tools available to you because you knew you couldn't take me down with brute force. How could you have hit me harder when you were already hitting me as hard as you thought you could? No, little bird, you needed to _want_ to hit me and until I gave you the means, you were reluctant to even poke me with the dull end of your sparring sword."

"I don't appreciate the methods you took to make me try and hurt you."

"Well, I don't really care if you don't approve; it served its purpose. That's how you win battles; by getting angry. There's a fine line between fighting angry and fighting stupid and the men who cross that line lose—and die. I crossed it with your previous sworn shield, got into some trouble and then got angry with her for calling me a knight. I'd been fighting to keep the woman from taking your sister up until then, but after she made the remark, I just wanted to hurt her for no good damn reason and it cost me everything."

Hearing him retell the story of how he and Arya had parted ways and the manner in which they had, the reasoning behind it, made Sansa hurt for him all over again, knowing that he had ended up as a pile of bloody meat for scavengers to pick off until someone had saved him.

"Don't trouble yourself worrying over it, little bird. I hear tell that I survived that encounter," he teased.

"But how do you know that I was fighting angry and not stupid? You baited me into it by infuriating me but that's when men are prone to making mistakes."

"You're a special case, little bird. You don't know how to properly wield a sword so you don't qualify for our rules. I wanted to see how far I would have to push you to get you to swing that sword with everything you had and you only truly meant to hurt me with the first stroke, then you knew what I was doing and you only wanted to impress me."

"I didn't—"

"I've been around women long enough to know when they're trying to earn something from a man, whatever it is. You wanted me to look at you and see a woman who wouldn't lay down and die. And you succeeded. You may still die if it comes to it, but at least you won't lay down and take it now."

Hardly comforting words at all, but the Hound was wasted on flourishing praise.

"So I'm sufficient enough to die without being a coward?" asked Sansa.

"You were complete shite. No technique, no skill, you're a bloody mess. But you tried and didn't let someone insulting you to your face about it keep you from giving it everything you had. You won't see open battle, but you might just stand a chance now if someone comes barging into your room with the intent to harm you."

Of course she wasn't an accomplished swordswoman after just one bout, but she didn't believe she was, as the Hound had so delicately put it, 'complete shite'. It stung her pride to have given everything to that fight and still be seen as less than a novice.

"I suspect you're relieved then, that I am still in need of you to cut down men who would seek to do me that harm."

"You'll always need men like me, little bird. You don't have it in you to be a warrior like your sister, but that doesn't mean you aren't a fighter of sorts. You saw the power that came with using a deadly weapon against another man and you wanted more of it, took pleasure in it. Did you feel that when you sentenced Littlefinger to die? When you set Ramsay's hounds on him?"

"Killing Littlefinger was necessary, as he had become a danger to my family, but I took pleasure in ending Ramsay as much as he took pleasure in raping me," said Sansa boldly, remembering how she had watched Ramsay scream his last as the dogs ripped into his face, tore out his throat, and began to eat him whole. Such a sight would have brought her nightmares for months as a child, regardless of who it was being mauled to death, but as a woman who had experienced the man's monstrosities, she could not look away. "I found power and purpose in knowing that he would never harm another living soul because I made it so. I ended the bastard, and that gave me enormous satisfaction to take away his opportunity to do the thing he loved most."

"He made you a killer, then," said the Hound simply.

"What?"

"Ramsay Bolton put hatred in your heart where once there had only been girlish innocence. He hurt you, and you hated him for it, hated him enough to want to do something about it. You tried with Joffrey and I stopped you, but he'd killed your father and you were acting as Ned Stark's daughter, not because you wanted to kill the little twat. You set those dogs on Bolton's bastard because you could and you took _pleasure _in it. He could have been given a trial but you denied him that. You killed him. He died by your decision. That makes you a killer. And you once thought men who killed for pleasure were evil."

He had her now. One of her few private conversations with the Hound had been centered on her insistence that her own father only killed out of necessity, not satisfaction. The Hound had told her that he enjoyed killing, that all men who did it secretly yearned for more of it and she had hated him for saying such awful things about her father. But she didn't kill Ramsay out of her own selfish needs. She had seen him ended for the sake of others. Hadn't she?

"You don't even have the decency to deny it," said the Hound.

"I do deny it," said Sansa quickly, though too late. "He had hurt Theon Greyjoy before me and many others, but I was the only one of his victims who was able to do something about it. His death was justice for all of them, living and dead whom he wronged and harmed."

"I told you never to lie to me again," the Hound snapped, standing up to tower over her. The scarred part of his lip twitched like a dog's did when it was giving a warning to those invading its space. "Lie to yourself all you want, but not to me, girl, not about this. No one talks about killing a man with the look you just had on your face. It made you happy to do it, as is your right, but you can't act like you're above the rest of us, that your kill was justified and that somehow makes you wholesome. You're the same as me now, and that makes you a she-wolf. Wielding that sword today with the intent to hurt me makes you a she-wolf."

"I'm not a murderer."

"You showed me that you were capable of murder when you were fourteen years old, little bird. You showed me today that you're capable of fighting dirty when the battle doesn't sway in your favor."

"There's a difference in how you and I have killed," she insisted.

"Is there?"

Now that he had asked her, she wasn't entirely sure. How was it different, her setting Ramsay's dogs on him in the most brutal form of slaughter from how Ramsay had done the same to countless others? How was it different in how she had allowed Ramsay to be fed to his own pets from how the Hound had mutilated the men who would have raped her?

"There has to be. I killed the men who wronged me. You kill because you can. You think that we're the same, but I never cut a man open just to watch him bleed."

"So you do think that makes you better than me."

"I think that makes us different."

"As long as you enjoy it, it's not different and neither are we."

"I think you're trying to make me angry again."

"You think you know what's going on inside of my head?" he asked. He came around to her side of the desk and leaned over her, hands on her armrests. "Tell me what I'm thinking, girl."

Sansa didn't presume to know the goings-on inside his head but she knew him well enough to have a very educated guess, especially where she was concerned. He admired the need to defend herself like Arya was able to, but there was a part of him that took pride in doing that job for her, having her rely on him and look to him. He wanted her to need him and as long as she did, he would stay with her. It was another reason for not wanting Bronn around; Bronn was an adequate replacement in doing the duty of a sworn shield and if Sansa had both him and the ability to defend herself, the Hound had no reason to stay—unless she gave him one.

To buy herself time to summon a response, she reached for her goblet, but he pushed it aside, leaning closer.

"Well?"

It was a shot in the dark, but she had nothing else to go on and with him so close, she had to take extreme care in what she said to ensure that it did not lead to another unwanted token of lust from him.

"You are thinking that by standing over me and breathing down my face, you can assume the role you always have in making me submit to your questions, demanding answers, but the time for that is a thing of the past." She put her hand to his chest, moving him backwards to stand in a clear sign that told him their supper was over.

He drained his goblet, conceding with surprising ease considering how he normally demanded the last word. In fact, his surrender was very much out of character and Sansa was immediately on edge as she waited for him to get in his last insult or unflattering comment. But it didn't come as he stuffed the last of his liver into his mouth and excused himself.

She was not prepared for him to give in completely and it brought her to action as she called after him, "Have you nothing to say in response to me? You never walk away without saying something degrading or something meant to keep me up, mulling over your words."

"How fast do you think you could go for your knife?" he asked.

What need did she have to pick up her knife when—

He spun around and came at her in a hard, determined stride with a look that meant someone was about to die. She had seen this look present on his face as Meryn Trant beat her, as Ser Merrick insisted that she be assaulted into silence, but she did not know who it was directed at now as he closed the distance between them.

Sansa felt around on the table for her knife and swiped it up in her right fist with surprising dexterity, given how none of her fingers had wanted to work earlier. She did not know if she was meant to raise it against him, so she didn't, not that she had the time to do it as he reached her and trapped both of her wrists in his. His eyes bored into hers, asking her what she would do now to defend herself if the situation were real and she had been disarmed.

She leaned back, trying to pull one of his hands toward her to sink her teeth into his palm. She opened her mouth, preparing to feel the salt of blood in her mouth, but he yanked her forward and she slammed against his chest.

His tone suggested that he was dumbfounded more than anything. "Did you just try to fucking _bite_ me?" he demanded.

"You wanted me to do something, didn't you?"

"You try to bite a man's knuckles and you'll only make him angrier and he'll slap you with his bleeding hand. If you bite him anywhere, you bite his face or you bite him below."

_Below_.

He wanted her to do whatever was necessary to break his hold on her? This was the only option available to her. Leaning her weight on her bad leg, she brought her other up, making contact with his already tender muscle.

The Hound released her, grasping the edge of the desk instead as his knees came together and he sank into her now vacant chair. Several of his choice swearwords came forth in a stream of pained nonsense, though it was half an octave higher. She waited for him to regain his breath, stepping nimbly out of his reach as she recalled how he had taken her down as punishment last time. When he was able to look up at her without wincing, he beckoned her closer, but she remained wisely out of his range until she was certain that he wasn't going to grab at her. He dug his finger into her collarbone several times as the words tried to form and then he managed to rasp out, "Don't _ever_ hit me there again."

"What was I supposed to do, then?"

"That, exactly, but I didn't think you'd actually do it. Gods, girl, you're merciless."

"Perhaps, but I didn't enjoy it," she shot back.

He gave a dry, wheezy cough that might have been a chuckle and then righted himself, planting his left leg well in front to prevent her from attacking him again below the belt. His hand snatched out and grabbed her by the chin, leaving her no time to think of how she might break free from his hold this time, though she wasn't certain if she was supposed to try. He wasn't pulling at her hard, but he did want her to look at him.

"You have to be merciless every time, with every blow and strike because if you aren't, he'll make sure you don't get the chance to be. You understand?"

She nodded. In battle, there were no second chances and if she did not succeed the first time, she would never get to try again. Every blow needed to be delivered with the intent to kill. Every action demanded that she be on the offense, a wolf going for the mortal blow, a killer wanting to do harm. She could not be a wolf with a silver tongue; wolves were not known for speaking their way out of situations. Wolves killed and she had best learn or the pack would cut her loose.

Then he left her, having gotten in his last word, but for once, she was glad to have them.


	11. Chapter 11: Decisions of Your Own

**SANDOR**

Two solid weeks of training with no rest period saw little improvement in her. She did not complain as he had expected her to and if she could face the grueling sessions on a broken leg, Sandor had no room to be griping about them either even with his battle injuries, but he was growing impatient in—for lack of a better word—dueling with her when he wanted to bypass the part of their relationship that came between now and whenever he would finally get to stick her with his own flesh sword.

Nearly every day ended in agony for him to have to guide her through the godswood, across the courtyard, through the pattern of corridors, and to her room before he could hurry back to his own quarters and take care of his constant state of arousal for her. The sweat glistening on her forehead, the way her facial muscles tightened when she swung out at him, the curve of her armor over what he had fleetingly felt were firm breasts (and he knew this from pure happenstance rather than deliberately gaining access to them), all were sights that made his breeches uncomfortable to wear as the day wore on and he found himself tugging his tunic down over them repeatedly to hide himself from her—and the sellsword. All he needed was for that little wanker to see the tenting of his breeches and he would never hear the end of it.

And still, she was as terrible as she had been the first day even with the determination of a thousand soldiers. He had given her the tools to access the anger within, but there was only so much he could belittle her for to make her want to chop his head off. Finally, when she grew frustrated from not being able to bring him to his knees like before, she asked for a demonstration, which both Sandor and the sellsword declined instantly, knowing that the outcome would only lead to neither of them being able to resist taking unsporting jabs at one another. But then the prick had pointed out that Sandor was most likely still too sore in his nether regions to stage a proper scrap, which changed Sandor's mind in an instant.

Sandor agreed to spar against the sellsword if only to give himself an excuse to quite literally shove his boot up the man's arse and such an opportunity came halfway through the five minute battle. Ghost had appeared unexpectedly beside Sandor to watch the fight unfold and the sellsword let down his guard to turn his attention to the direwolf, giving Sandor time to spin him around and deliver a vicious kick to his arse. It had earned him the little bird's amusement as she covered his mouth to avoid letting the sellsword see her smile, but it also earned him the sellsword's disdain and rage, the latter of which was a perfect example to teach the little bird the difference between fighting angry and fighting stupid.

The sellsword had the means to continue sword to sword, but his humiliation at being booted like a squire made him abandon the notion, instead favoring an old fashioned, dirty fisticuffs. He came in hacking, swinging every which way and Sandor was forced to switch out his sword for a close contact weapon, then the two of them swiped daggers at each other with Sandor deliberately missing and the sellsword coming up just shy. He was not boasting when he claimed to be quick where Sandor was strong, but he was also maimed and as he stabbed out with his bad arm, Sandor caught him, trapping it against his side and bringing his elbow down upon it so that the sellsword had no choice but to drop his weapon or risk having his arm broken in addition to mauled.

He then tangled his legs between Sandor's and the two of them crumpled in the snow in a knotted mess of limbs. Somehow, the sellsword had found another knife and went to put it to Sandor's jugular, thus forcing him to yield, but Sandor chopped him across the throat in favor of sparing his already broken nose. His left hand held the sellsword down by the neck and the other pressed into the sensitive flesh right above the man's eyeball.

"Alright, enough, I'm done!" the sellsword shouted in panic, throwing both arms above his head in surrender.

Sandor stood up, going to collect his fallen weapons as the sellsword lay in a replica of his body's silhouette, pushed down several inches into the snow by Sandor's weight on him.

"Stupid or angry?" Sandor asked the little bird, leaving the sellsword to help himself up.

"Angry first. He should have kept to the sword instead of coming in closer because that's where he made a mistake."

"You're learning," said Sandor and the little bird beamed.

"What the fuck were you doing just now?" called the sellsword once he had finally sat up. "Trying to get some sort of Mountain-worthy confession out of me before you crushed me skull? This was supposed to be a friendly match."

"I made clean misses, you tosser. You were going for the wound." Sandor threw the shackles to the man, which the latter donned for the first time with some reluctance, obviously ardent on continuing their unsettled skirmish. "You're being given an opportunity here, sellsword. Walk yourself back to the castle."

The sellsword gave an indifferent shrug at this freedom, still moping over his loss, and went on his way, carrying the sound of clinking chains with him until it died out completely. Sandor then tended to his own armor once again and began to unlace the little bird from hers.

"What did he mean when he said the Mountain's confession?" she asked presently.

"I wasn't there, but trial by combat travels faster than the raven flies. Gregor confessed to Oberyn Martell before he squashed his skull that he had raped the prince's sister. Confessed it in front of dozens of lords and ladies but none of them cared about what sort of crimes he had done in the past. He fought to avenge the fallen King Joffrey, so he could do no evil in sight of the gods because he was a knight. A man admits to killing and raping a woman and is given a knighthood for it but a man is put on trial for poisoning a butcher king and is not guilty of it, but the people demand his head. That's why I refuse to say the vows."

"Because knights can do horrible things and still be praised as heroes?"

"Because my brother's been a rapist all of his life and I don't want to be a fucking thing like him. He gave knights a bad name just by breathing because of what he is. My father gave lords a bad name by defending him after he'd tried to kill me. I want nothing to do with any of that shit."

He pulled harder on her armor than he meant to and she stuck her hand around her back to still his as she turned to face him.

"All of his life?" she repeated.

"Aye, since he was a boy no older than you were when I first laid eyes on you. Not even ten-and-two. And his first victim didn't survive the assault."

She was a smart girl; she would get the answer without him offering it and by the look of horror that suddenly claimed her face, she got it a lot quicker than he had anticipated.

"How old was she?"

"She was seven. I was five. I didn't understand how she had died when I heard the maester explaining to my father that she had suffered and then fallen victim to wounds down below but with my brother being my brother, I figured out what had happened soon enough."

"What was her name?"

"I'm not certain I remember. My father forbade us from mentioning it, had her erased from our history. My mind tells me it was Elinor, but I don't trust that much anymore."

Her hand rested upon his arm, not because it was the proper thing to do in offering condolences for a sister long-dead, but because she knew perhaps better than anyone what sort of irreversible pain came along with that.

"How could your father erase his own daughter from the history of your house?"

"It's different here in the North. You were born to parents of a noble house, Warden of the North. They rang the bells all day and into the night when you were born, I hear. The daughter of a lesser house of the West, even a bannerman to House Lannister did not merit celebration when she was born. No one cared that House Clegane had birthed a second-born daughter and they gave even less of a shit when I was born, the second son and youngest child. If we both had died, no one would have cared, but only she did, so she was the one who was forgotten. I was remembered because my _bedding caught fire_."

She was tactful enough to pretend that this was news to her but he gave her a small shake. "Come on, girl, you know that's a load of pigshit. Won't ask who told you, but you've heard me say it half a dozen times that my brother was responsible, and he didn't set the bedding on fire either."

"I know. Littlefinger told me, long ago at the Hand's tourney."

The Hand's tourney, years past but not forgotten. The death of that green knight, Gregor's unprovoked attack on Ser Loras, the roar of the crowd as Ser Loras lifted Sandor's hand in the air to share in the championship, the uncomfortable feeling of so many eyes on him in a victory he did not want. And the little bird chancing momentary looks over at him, stationed behind Joffrey. He watched the tourney without interest, his thoughts far away, but he could feel her eyes on him between every changing of the riders.

Yes, he had noticed the little bird just as often as she had turned her eyes to him.

"So Littlefinger told you how my brother tried to murder me over a stupid toy and what did my father do about it? How did he handle the sadistic tendencies of his eldest son? By claiming that my fireplace had spat sparks upon my sheets. The servants who pulled Gregor off of me were given silver to silence themselves and promised that their tongues would be removed if they ever spread whisper of what had occurred in the Clegane keep. If my father was willing to do that to protect the reputation and future of his house through Gregor, it would not have given him one less second of sleep to bury my sister's remains with her memory to prevent the truth of her demise from spreading. Gregor Clegane, the boy who raped his little sister to death and then attempted to murder his little brother over a toy, the pride of House Clegane, a knight, a warrior, a fucking lord."

"And that's why you became a sworn shield, to do for others what you couldn't do for her."

"Partly. I don't remember her much. I don't remember her face or her voice, but she was my sister, and she deserved better, even in death, better than what she got from our father. That's why it's got to be me who kills my brother, not because it's the right thing to do, but because the fucker got away with it for too long. So I'll do what needs be done."

He saw a flicker of uncertainty cloud her face as she contemplated his words and what they meant, but she didn't ask when he planned to leave. She didn't want to think of tomorrow when today was not yet over.

"Will you take your evening meal with me again?"

There were so few opportunities to be alone with her now that his days were numbered until his leave of Winterfell, and so he accepted before he considered that that might not be the best idea, given how their last meal together had gone. He didn't give a damn, though. Any chance to have her on her own had him leaping at the prospect.

He could get away without washing his clothes as long as he did not have to tend to her privately, but supper with her meant that he had to come back out to the godswood to strip, give himself a quick scrubbing, and try to both wash and dry his clothes in a timely manner. He decided that since she would also need time enough to wash, he had the same amount of time to hack away at some of this wild beard he had sported for far too long. It was starting to smell, and not just with the scent of whatever he had last eaten.

His dagger made quick work of most of it and he judged that he had taken off enough to return him to the length it had been when he had last cared to trim it, more than stubble and less than a wildling-worthy tangle.

Deeming himself mildly appropriately dressed and groomed, he set off for the all-too familiar destination of the little bird's chambers. He found his way barred by Lord Varys long before he had even gotten close to the first staircase. They were in a deserted and not often used corridor which did not bode well for the conversation likely to follow.

"Good evening, my lord," said the eunich, bowing deep enough as would befit him if he were addressing an actual lord. "I wonder if I might have a word with you?"

"We're already alone," said Sandor.

"Quite right. I can see that you are not one to stand on ceremony or formality, so I will be as brief as I can. I would like to discuss Lady Sansa Stark with you."

Sandor was none too ready or interested in discussing the little bird with anyone except her and certainly not with the Master of Whispers. "I'd just as soon not."

"I'm afraid that your presence has led to—complications with the young woman. You see, Lady Stark holds a prominent title with the coming of Queen Daenerys. Jon Snow forfeited his claim to the Northern throne and though he and his sister share the title of Lord and Lady of Winterfell and Warden and Wardeness of the North, he will most assuredly give up those titles as well when the queen sits the Iron Throne, leaving Sansa Stark alone to attend the North. Whether or not the North will become an independent kingdom or continue as it has remains to be seen, but rest assured, Sansa Stark will hold the titles to it regardless of its affiliation with the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. She must therefore be focused on the task at hand, dedicating all of her energies into the victory that must be procured in the South."

"You call all this prattling on _brief_?" asked Sandor in annoyance.

"Perhaps not as brief as we both would prefer, but necessary all the same. Sansa Stark was utterly attentive to the needs of her people and what is best for them, and by that token, what is best for the queen and the realm before your arrival here in Winterfell but that is the case no longer. Queen Daenerys will need undivided attention and council from Lady Stark who has not been undivided in her attentions as of late."

"You're saying the Hound is a distraction to the Lady of Winterfell because I carry her from room to room and then fuck off?"

"Only you don't, my friend. You and I both know where you spend your nights and why as well as what the two of you and Ser Bronn do all day in the godswood. And she lies awake at night wondering about you and all of your puzzling attributes quite often."

"And you'd know that how? Because if you're going to tell me that you sneak into her room at night to watch her, I'll gut you right now."

"As noble as that intention may be, I have never once stepped foot in her chamber, though the same cannot be said for you. I simply see it in her face, the tired circles under her eyes, and the way she looks at you. And I tell you that you are not befitting of a consort to her."

Sandor let out an unseemly snort at the word. He had never had the intention of being anything so presumptuous as a marriage partner to the little bird. He could warm her bed and see that nothing as vile as Ramsay Bolton ever got within ten leagues of her, but to even consider that someone had fathomed the idea of him being more to her than that was not only impossible, but laughable. But then he realized that once he had her—if he managed to have her—he would not be willing to share her, and that could lead to complications if she was required to marry a prominent lord to further her claim and house.

Still, what business was that of the eunich's?

"There would have to be some sort of relationship there to reach that step—"

"Not necessarily. Arranged marriages often occur without the man and wife ever laying eyes on each other before the ceremony, but that would be preferable to this situation. However much you may like to deny it, you have spent more time with her here than you ever did in her years at King's Landing and before you ask, you know better than to ask how I knew about all those times you _happened_ to stumble upon her in the corridors of the Red Keep."

"The Imp found the need to point that out to me as well and it holds the same water now as it did then: none. It's not your fucking business."

"One could make the argument that it is the duty and the privilege to know the business of everyone in this castle because everyone capable of acting to defy Cersei Lannister resides within. Sansa Stark is a vital part of the battle to come, but her attentions have been elsewhere instead of on the impending threat in the South. I would hear nothing but complaints about this or that and all centering on how Sansa Stark stands firm on liberating the North entirely from the Seven Kingdoms once Queen Daenerys rules but those complaints have been few and far between since the Lady of Winterfell had her accident in the courtyard. Now, the only whispers I hear of her are those surrounding her involvement with the tall, brooding stranger with the scarred face."

"Her involvement with the tall, brooding stranger with the scarred face is _her—fucking—business_. And if I catch you or any of your little birds nosing into it when you don't belong—"

"You and I both know you would not harm a child and as for myself, you have no reason for dispatching me other than my interest in your affiliation with her. I cannot confess to caring deeply for her happiness, though the gods know she has earned it, but I do care that she be brought to awareness of her actions and how they may hinder the war effort if she continues to let her association with you consume her."

Sandor knew how this little game worked. He had never been privy to it directly in all his time in King's Landing, but he knew that the Spider had earned his name for a reason and that his heavily weighted persuasions were nothing more than veiled threats promised to be carried out by better men. If Lord Varys wanted someone removed from their position or disposed of because they interfered with the little weasel's plans, he would have no problem following through with it. Which meant that every morsel of food could now potentially carry poison, every step Sandor took down the many castle stairs could end in an unexpected fall. The Spider would ensure that Sandor would not become a problem unless Sandor took himself out of the equation.

"I wish you happiness, Sandor Clegane, I truly do, but for the foreseeable future, it is not with Sansa Stark," said Lord Varys, nodding as he saw that Sandor understood.

Sandor seized him by the front of his silken robe and threw him against the rough stone of the wall, lifting him upright and his slippered feet left the floor. "You've never dealt with a man like me before, eunich, so let me explain to you how it works. You're a clever little bastard, but you have others do your fighting for you whereas I don't need anyone or anything but my own hands to crush your throat and leave you for dead right here. You'll leave me alone, you'll leave her alone, and you'll let us decide what's best for us, damned if the realm suffers for it. If anything happens to me, she won't be of any use to anyone because she'll be lost to her own misery. You can try to touch me, but you said it yourself: I've spent ample time with her and she wants me with her. So you stay the fuck away from both of us, you puny bald prick."

He dropped the eunich unceremoniously on the floor and barged through a series of doors, corridor after corridor all leading straight with a door on either end. He stormed through another and found himself in the Great Hall which was empty apart from the roaring fire in the hearth and the boy in the wheeled chair before it. His head rotated slowly in Sandor's direction, eyes blank and uninterested, but still unexplainably eerie. He watched Sandor, unblinking for a time and Sandor considered that he might just slip right back out the way he came to avoid any interaction with him whatsoever, but he would have to march straight back into Lord Varys and his pride would not allow him to do such a thing.

Sandor remembered this boy when he was just that and nothing more, an adventurous little lad peering down at him with keen interest from trees and battlements as his direwolf pup circled below, unable to go where its master led. No introductions had been made then, for Joffrey did not associate with the Stark children other than to shoot rather hungry looks at the little bird who returned them with much battering of her eyelashes. It sickened him to recount those events now when he considered what those glances between young people eventually led to, but the boy before him had never interacted with the prince and so Sandor did not care to know his name until after he had taken his fall.

Brandon Stark, second youngest son of Eddard Stark, a cripple, now some sort of magical being who was able to do much the same as Varys except he didn't need children to do his job for him. He regarded Sandor, clearly waiting for him to speak first.

"Stop looking at me like that," said Sandor uncomfortably.

"How would you prefer I look at you?" asked the boy.

"I'd prefer you didn't."

"I can't help what I see when I look at people. I see everything they've ever done, every action and word. I saw the path that led you here and every detail of your past that made you into who you are. Had your brother not shoved your face into the fire, you would have become a knight serving Tywin Lannister. You would have fallen in battle during Robert's Rebellion at the Battle of the Trident, felled by my father, Eddard Stark. But because you hated your brother for what he did to you, you were determined to be nothing like him, and that set you on the path that led you here instead."

Sandor did not believe in the Lord of Light. He didn't believe in the gods or if there were any, he believed that they were a bunch of cunts. But in a world of dragons, direwolves, wights, resurrected knights, and visions in the flames, he believed that something other-worldy was at work. If this boy claimed to be able to see the past and the alternative pasts that might have been but for one decision that changed the course of the future, Sandor believed him. He didn't know how the boy knew, but the boy definitely _knew_. And he was telling Sandor that having Gregor press his face into the kitchen coals was the reason Sandor was alive today. The Red Woman had said the same, that Sandor was blessed by the Lord of Light in having half of his face burned off.

"Do you see the part of your future where I break your chair and leave you to piss yourself on the floor, boy?"

"You told my sister that you suspected what your brother had done to your sister, but in actuality, you saw what your brother did to her and you repressed it. And that is part of the reason why he burned you, not just because of the wooden knight you borrowed from him. He meant to silence you, but you lived with both the fear of fire and of him. And now you are torn between killing him to end the sufferings of all those he wronged and staying to protect the woman who nearly met her end the same way as your sister."

The wooden knight. Sandor had told no one which toy of Gregor's he had borrowed. Not even his father had known the cause for the Clegane boys' quarrel. Only Sandor and Gregor knew…and this boy. This boy who was not the first to tell him that his interest in the Lady of Winterfell had been noticed.

"Don't tell me what I'm torn between, boy. There's no decision there to be made. I'm going to kill the bastard and be done with it."

"And you will die."

It wasn't a question. The boy could see the past at will, but he had uncanny skills at foreseeing many possible futures and if he had seen Sandor's future, seen his death in combat with his brother, then so be it.

"Aye, that I will."

"And you don't fear it."

"You have to love life to fear death. You've got to have something that tethers you to the world to not walk so calmly to your death."

"Are you so empty-handed, then?"

"You're the one with foresight; you tell me."

"It's not for me to determine another man's future. You must make your own decisions."

"I did, a long time ago."

His respite within the walls of Winterfell did not quench or quell his thirst for his brother's blood. This place was not his home; no place was. Home was where his mother had been, his sister, his unbroken family. And he had not had that since he was a boy, younger than Brandon Stark had been when he fell from the broken tower. A home could not be made by a wish of something he did not yet have and though his time here with the little bird had made him content, it was not enough to make him stay. Waking to gentle snowfall, knowing that he would see her face in short order and be able to touch her was a luxury he had grown accustomed to having, but he wanted more—to taste her, feel her, go inside her, and claim her. And he could not have that—yet.

He could, though. He could if he dared to be so bold and take her for his own. It would not be a surprise to her, for she knew what he wanted and now that he had come to know her better and spent ample time in her company, he deserved her. She might even be willing now. Gods knew it stirred up feelings of confusion and arousal within her when he touched her as he had been with a hand to her waist, the brush of his thumb across her lips, and his many caresses over her abused skin. She could not fully comprehend it, but a part of her desperately wanted him and if he was to abandon his current fate, he would need reciprocity on her part first.

Time was running out until the Dragon Queen took her army to liberate King's Landing, time that Sandor had spent building a wall and clashing steel with two people who would not be fighting the front lines. The time that remained had to be dedicated to making her his, if she would have him. He had to act and offer himself to her and if she turned him away, then he would take his leave of her, but he had to know.

"You would have me leave my brother's fate to chance so that I could stay here to protect your sister, is that it?" asked Sandor when he realized he had been silent for far too long, giving Brandon Stark enough time to guess his reason for being so.

"I am not only Brandon Stark anymore, which makes her another being's sibling. She is Brandon Stark's sister, and he loved her very much. He would have wanted the best for her, the best man to protect her, love her, and give her all that she was denied in life. You know that man, but it's your decision if you want to bring him to her."

His decision. This unnatural boy knew how badly he wanted to fuck the Lady of Winterfell and had nothing other than encouragement for Sandor. The Spider had forbidden it, the boy supported it, which left Sandor and the little bird herself to choose how they would go about it.

Still lost in the possibilities, he did not notice that the boy was still looking at him, seeing right through him or perhaps right into him, trying to guess which of his many futures he would choose for himself.

"Sandor," said the boy. "Her name _was_ Elinor, as your memory serves you. She saw you watching, as did your brother. She asked your brother not to hurt you. Your name was the last word she spoke before he killed her. She loved you."

Sandor ventured closer to him enough for his shadow to completely cast itself on the lad, but did not dare lean closer, for looking too closely into those blank brown eyes was not something he wanted to experience and he wanted to stay well out of range of the fireplace. "You stay out of my head and my history, boy."

"You have allowed your brother's actions to fashion your whole life and that has led you here, to what you want most. But you wonder if what you want most is worth setting aside your revenge."

"What I want most is for you to shut the fuck up."

"You have lived by your own choices, Sandor Clegane. Not the right or wrong ones, but yours. Your decision is what will shape your future, not by anything I can tell you."

"I'm deciding that I've heard enough magical shit out of you."

Praying that he would have no more chance encounters with anyone who told him what they believed to be his future, Sandor ran the rest of the way to the little bird's chambers and admitted himself in without a knock, bolting the door behind him to avoid interruption for the conversation to come.

She was dressed in the same simple gown she had worn the evening of the victory feast, slender, dark, and mysterious. She sat at her desk again with a goblet already poured for him which he went to and drained. Contemplation was thirsty work.

"Did you get lost on your way?" she ribbed, but her face fell when she saw what had to be confusion on his. "What happened?"

Now, to tell the truth as he always had or to fib his way into her bed. If he revealed that Lord Varys had threatened him, she would launch an investigation, a trial of treason, and a whole mess of shite that he didn't want to participate in. If he told her how her own brother had all but asked Sandor to stay for her sake, she would demand to ask the boy herself and then have the decision forced on her rather than letting it come naturally. If he told her outright at this very moment that he was through with the niceties and waiting games and that he wanted her naked or he would leave, the outcome would result in him finding the best rested horse from the stables and setting out well before first light. If he said nothing and pretended that all was well, he would be prolonging his cock's much-needed fix.

"Sandor, something has happened."

"Nothing so pressing that you need worry about it, little bird. Rumors, more than anything."

"Rumors about…?"

"You," he said carefully.

"And what do these rumors say?"

"That you have put your commitment to the North on hold to train with a dog and a sellsword. The people know what we do in the godswood and think you have become distracted by—other things."

"But why should that bother you?"

"That doesn't. The rumors circulating about me making my home here where I don't belong are what bother me. They remind me that I've grown too comfortable here and that I've let myself become distracted to my own goal, too busy fucking around to remember what I've been waiting for. So I'll be leaving by week's end."

He had shocked her into silence, but it was not to last. She stood up, not needing the support of any desk or crutch to hold herself.

"You will not," she said firmly.

"You and your newfound deadly skills with the blade going to stop me, girl?" he asked, though he did not commit to the joke.

"I can command it."

"And you think that'll give me incentive to stay?"

"If I command and you refuse, if I ask and you refuse, what else is there to do?"

"Nothing. You can do nothing, something you should be used to by now."

He poured himself another full goblet of wine but should have known better than to expect that she would take that news lightly. He had wanted a she-wolf, and he had one as she bristled, all but showing her teeth to him in a manner akin to the sigil of her house. "I will never do nothing when I have the power to do anything. You will not leave, Sandor Clegane, I forbid it. You will wait until my brother is prepared to lead the foot-army and then you will travel with them to King's Landing."

"And just where the fuck do you get off thinking I'll follow your orders when I don't owe it to you or anyone else to stay?"

He knew she might take his hostility the wrong way, but as with her training, he had to egg her toward the side of anger to access the truths she was so reluctant to give in to.

"This is your home now," she insisted. "You have been happy here—"

"Is that what you call it? You call it happiness, what I've been doing for you when I'd be just as happy taking a shit in a proper privy instead of in some damn bush? No, you ignorant child, I have not stayed here because I call this place home. I told you before that I would remain for as long as my wounds forced me to and they're sealed up well and good now, so I've got no further use staying here."

"What is there to be gained in parting on your own? You could travel in safety with the army and arrive with Daenerys. She could make the path to your brother much easier by eliminating everything that would stand in your way before she actually got there."

"By the time she's done with the place, it'll be ash and blood and Cersei will have had my brother lead her out and the two of them can live happily across the Narrow Sea. She'll be long gone before the Targaryen woman ever gets close and my brother will go with her. I'm not going to lose my chance just to travel with you in a carriage like you want."

"I don't ask you to stay for me."

He pointed at her, his long finger solid in its accusation. She had been truthful with him up until now in their exchange but he knew her lies well and this was the most transparent one of all.

"You know damn well why you want me to stay, girl."

She chewed at her lip, stubbornly refusing to say what he was determined to hear. "Yes, for reasons I have already told you."

_Willful girl, _he thought as they stood at odds with each other, neither refusing to back down. _I'll hear you say it before I leave. One way or another, I'll hear you beg me to stay. I'll have it from your own lips that you want me._

/ /

**|AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't put many of these in because I don't have much to say and I don't have enough readers to address them all in one place. But I wanted to thank all of you who have shown interest in this story. I figured that it would be a quick little fanservice to myself and other SanSan shippers, but eleven chapters in and we're past that. I'm happy that those of you who have reviewed are happy with how things have gone so far and hope to do the characters and the story justice in what is to come. Love you all.|**


	12. Chapter 12: A Knight's Luck

**JORAH**

Never had Jorah attended so tense of a breakfast as the one he sat through now, seated between Daenerys and Lady Sansa in the library. It was an odd place to take the morning meal—or any meal—but Daenerys had spread out maps of King's Landing detailing every gate, gutter, and underground passageway to give her and Lady Sansa something to discuss in possible exit strategies Cersei would take when the siege began. The lady wolf knew the Red Keep well enough, Tyrion knew it better, and Lord Varys knew it best, but the queen was not taking breakfast with either of those men. No doubt she would bring up this very discussion during the war council meeting later in the day, but for now she was playing the flattery card, hoping that by acknowledging Lady Sansa as a strategist, she would earn some respect from the Lady of Winterfell.

Daenerys had asked Lady Sansa which path Cersei was most likely to try and escape by and the latter had mused about the passage that led out from under the Black Cells to a seaside cavern that eventually spilled out into the Blackwater, but she had become lost in thought, tracing various secretive routes with her fingers as her other hand clutched a half-eaten apple.

Doing her best to conceal an exasperated sigh, Daenerys shared a look with Jorah and if he didn't know any better, he would say that she blamed him for Lady Sansa's disinterest even though this tactical breakfast was _her _idea.

Daenerys cleared her throat pointedly and Lady Sansa's glazed-over eyes refocused.

"Forgive me if I seem distracted, Your Grace."

"You are. What troubles you?"

Lady Sansa returned her apple to her plate in contemplation and just when Jorah concluded that she would not speak on the matter, the lady gave a sigh and revealed, "Sandor Clegane."

"Ah, yes, he does seem to be the base of many problems as of late," observed the queen. "Has he said something profoundly insulting this time?"

"He is of a mind to carry out a suicidal mission and nothing I say can sway him," said Lady Sansa miserably.

"Perhaps I might be able to help. I find that with the assistance of my dragons, people see me as most _persuasive_," offered the queen.

"I thank you, Your Grace, but you would have to be a miracle worker to convince Sandor Clegane otherwise once he sets his mind to something."

That much was certainly true. Once Clegane had a mind to be a condescending, miserable old bat, no one could convince him otherwise and he had taken it upon himself to be more disagreeable than not whenever not in the company of Lady Sansa.

"You wish him to stay here? You are concerned for him because you are fond of him?" asked Daenerys shrewdly.

Ever graceful, Lady Sansa held her chin high in response. "I have a friendly fondness of him, true enough, however, I do not wish him to stay here. I wish him to accompany the army to King's Landing, but he will not wait. We are still several days out from the march, but he is determined to leave on the morrow."

"I see, so it was imperative to have the men remain here to rebuild your castle but now that it is built, we must make for King's Landing with all haste before your friend gets himself killed on this suicidal mission?"

Jorah shot Daenerys a look that reprimanded her for being so insensitive, but Lady Sansa was able to defend herself adequately.

"This is the stronghold of the North and your place of fallback if for some reason the battle goes ill, so it was imperative to have it refortified but I do not ask or command for the army to reach the capital before Sandor Clegane. I merely wish to travel with him, but am unable because of my inability to ride just yet. Wishful thinking and a distraction, as I noted, but you asked, so I obliged."

"What intentions could he possibly have that are so urgent that he cannot wait a handful of days to ride in the rearguard with you?"

"Those intentions are not for me to say, Your Grace. He might tell you himself, if you cared to ask him, but he would not appreciate me divulging that information to you. I can assure you, though, it is of the same impossible feat to accomplish for one man as it was for our armies to engage the Night King's wights. My sister had an unforeseen critical role, but she was one among thousands who fought, and she had many others to help her reach her goal. Sandor Clegane has no one but himself and the odds of him surviving this foolhardy mission are less than ours were."

"You fear for him quite strongly."

"As you would and have for Ser Jorah, Your Grace," responded Lady Sansa.

Daenerys softened on Jorah's behalf, recalling as he did how he had come so close to leaving her forever and had it not been for Clegane, he might have for the simple reason that there had been no one left to help him as he knelt dying in the snow. She would have wept for him, longer and louder than she did when she thought he was close to the end, for he was everything she had seen and been, everything she had done that made her into the woman she was. They had began this journey together and she did want to complete it without him. That Lady Sansa considered her relationship with Sandor Clegane to be the same was not a fair assessment in the least.

"You consider this man to be your oldest, dearest, kindest, and most trustworthy friend? Someone who would lay down his life for you without question, who would respect your every wish, give you counsel in your endeavors and guidance when you allow yourself to be led astray? You look to this man as your family? Because that is what I see in the knight beside me, Lady Sansa, and forgive me my doubts, but I do not believe you care for Sandor Clegane in quite the same manner."

He knew he meant all these things and more to his queen; she had said the words to him in privacy, but she had never spoken them to another as she did now. There was hope to be had in that act. She did not consider him a brother, a father, a relative, but family. There were many definitions to that word and he would have the exact one from her, know just exactly how he stood in her heart and mind—but not now. Now was for befriending Lady Sansa.

"I have not endured what you have, Your Grace," said Lady Sansa, now with more confidence. "I do not know how you came to meet Ser Jorah or the many tribulations that crossed your paths. I do know that you and I have both suffered greatly to be where we are, but neither of us would be here if not for these men, Sandor Clegane and Jorah Mormont. And I do not have to care for him exactly as you do for Ser Jorah in order to care for him at all. He is a good man, if not a pleasant one. My family is indebted to him and by that token, everyone living, but more than that, he is my friend, and I do not have many of those left. Most of the inhabitants of this castle were slaughtered long ago, as were those who traveled with me to King's Landing. My family remains, and Sandor Clegane. I would protect him by whatever power resides in my hands, but there is absolutely nothing I can do, and so my mind has indeed been elsewhere as I accept the fact that I will be losing my friend and am powerless to stop him."

Daenerys pushed herself back from her seat, came around Jorah, and grasped Lady Sansa's hands. There was no look of polished sincerity to be seen on her face as Jorah had so often noticed when his queen spoke to Lady Sansa, only empathy. It was the look he had seen when her heart ached for those unable to do anything by the way of changing their own fortunes.

"I will speak with him for you and see if I might convince him to change his mind. If he will not obey his lady, he _will_ obey his queen."

"I fear that he will not speak kindly if you try, Your Grace. He is used to telling people what he thinks of them."

"He is not the only one who can deliver harsh truths. Allow me to try, as a gesture of friendship," Daenerys insisted.

"I thank you, Your Grace."

The man in question came to retrieve Lady Sansa with no suspicion that he had been the subject of their conversation as he half-carried her from the room to take her to the godswood where the two of them and her sworn shield had been disappearing to every day for near two weeks. When they had gone, Daenerys let the multitude of maps roll back into their scrolled forms, collecting the plates to stack at one corner of the table.

"She plays a dangerous game in allowing him so close to her if she does not intend on reciprocating his obvious affections for her," the queen observed to Jorah.

To the contrary, Jorah believed that Daenerys did not have much room to be speaking when she had done much the same in her relationship with him. Until Daario Naharis had come along, Jorah was the only man to be so close to her, but unlike Clegane, he had not taken liberties with the woman whose attention he sought. But she had never discouraged him in his quest to earn her favor so he had continued to pursue her without letting on that he wanted her. She knew, long before he told her, but he maintained a level of professionalism that did not put her in an awkward position and when it had come time to remember his love for her or question his loyalty, she had done the only thing she could: exiled him. With Clegane going into a sort of exile of his own doing, he was essentially removing himself from the equation and Lady Sansa was left trying to hold him back. Not at all situations unrelated, in Jorah's mind.

He voiced his opinion to Daenerys. "I don't know that the man is capable of having affection for someone so much as badly wanting to either bed them or kill them, but he does understand loyalty and acts with no thought of his own safety. But I do understand what you mean and I think that Lady Sansa is unaware of how her actions might be misinterpreted by a man so starved for proper human interaction."

_As you were, my queen, all those years before I admitted that I loved you. _

"Perhaps, but I would wager that she knows exactly what he wants from her and she is allowing their interactions to proceed as we just saw without caring about the consequences."

"And if she does harbor more than just friendly feelings for him, is that so wrong?" asked Jorah, knowing his queen would catch his double meaning.

"Were her parents still alive, they would wish for her to marry a man of titles and lands, neither of which Sandor Clegane has, but she is old enough and experienced enough to know what she wants. If what she wants is him, I would not be the one to stop her. I chose a man known as a bastard with no titles other than the ones his people gave him, but now there is no King in the North and Jon Snow remains a bastard to all except those who know of his true lineage. And if he remains a bastard in name, they will say that the queen took that bastard as her companion and there will be no shame in it, so there would be no shame in Lady Sansa choosing a man like that for her own. But she will not choose him, even if she does have affection for him, because she was broken in that way and he cannot repair her."

"He might surprise us all, khaleesi. He, a man of no importance among the lords and ladies of Westeros, has managed to become the topic of much discussion by the queen herself by simply being the man that he is. Who knows what he might accomplish if he put forth the effort to be anything more?"

"If he does not listen to reason and put aside whatever mummer's farce he is playing at to weasel some sort of proclamation from Lady Sansa, he will not accomplish much more than he already has," said Daenerys darkly.

/ /

"…still open-minded to the possibility that Cersei has no depths to which she won't sink?"

Jorah's mind had been elsewhere as the war council trickled into its second hour. With the day of their departure nearing its dawn, Daenerys insisted on mapping out contingency plans, addressing every possibility for any sort of attack Cersei might launch to stop them from reaching King's Landing. Of the dozen or so individuals who made up the queen's advisors, only Tyrion, Lord Varys, and Jon Snow had much to say on the matter, for they were the ones to plot back and forth while the rest of them stood by, trying to look engaged. Lady Sansa and her sister Arya chimed in every now and again, Ser Davos gave excellent advice on the waters surrounding the city, having navigated them most of his life, and Grey Worm and Missandei dutifully listened to their queen's plans. The only two to not utter a word were Brandon Stark, staring with seeming disinterest at the maps, though Jorah knew his thoughts to be on past successful and failed sieges, and of course, Sandor Clegane who had given up pulling books at random from the library shelves to seem occupied and returned to his favored spot at the window.

As Jorah had predicted, Lord Varys and Tyrion knew better than Lady Sansa of which routes Cersei might take to escape the castle if the city fell and _that_ conversation had taken the better part of a half hour so that before they had even addressed where they might be in the line once they reached King's Landing, Jorah's legs were starting to tire. The maester's close attentions had helped him heal tremendously in both body and mind, but he would not be facing a battle as long-winded as the one he had just fought until he could go more than an hour on his feet without feeling the need to sit, so the near month they would spend on the march was the best time to test himself, not here at the war council table.

"Negotiations will be handled by Lord Tyrion, as he knows both parties equally," said Daenerys presently, finally moving on. "Grey Worm and Jon Snow will be present to offer protection and ensure that Cersei doesn't try to end the terms before they've begun."

"Though admirable warriors both men are, if they are protecting Lord Tyrion, who is protecting yourself and Lady Sansa, Your Grace? Ser Jorah and perhaps Sandor Clegane?"

"I won't be there," said Clegane shortly and Jorah braced for the likely storm to follow now that the man had spoken out.

"Oh? Where, pray tell, do you plan to be if not protecting your lady?"

"She's not _my_ lady because I haven't said any bloody vows to her. That's her sworn shield's job, wherever the fucker's got to. I won't be there because I'm not a part of your army. I'm heading off on my own at first light."

"Pay him no heed," said Lady Sansa, bent forward over the table to take some of the pain from her broken leg. With Clegane standing now directly behind her, she had the courage to continue to give him only the attention of her back as she addressed the council. "He and Ser Bronn will provide sufficient enough protection for me in the event that Cersei stages one final attempt at having me killed."

Clegane brought himself to the table beside her and thumped both knuckles down, rattling the various army sigils in their places and knocking quite a few over. "What fantasy world do you live in where we discussed that?" he asked Lady Sansa.

"You will travel with the rest of us, or you will not go," said Lady Sansa again, this time with what Jorah could only describe as fear of betrayal on her face. "That is not a request."

"Bears the same weight as one: none," said Clegane.

"The Lady of Winterfell gave you an order, ser," said Daenarys, joining the verbal fray.

"I'm not from the North, Your Grace," said Clegane mildly. "And I'm no ser. I have no titles and no place among the Northerners. I'm a free man who chose to fight for the living and now that the dead are twice-dead, I fight for no man but myself. My decision is to settle my own score and it's not by following orders."

Daenarys looked to the Lady of Winterfell. "You claimed not long ago that you know this man well, Lady Sansa?"

"I do."

"Has he always been so—so…"

"Insubordinate and rude, yes," said Lady Sansa, glaring at Clegane.

"And what score do you have to settle that you would risk defying your queen?" asked Daenerys.

"I'm going to kill the man who did this to me," said Clegane, pointing viciously at the scarred side of his face. "And it'll do you lot a favor if I'm able to. He's Cersei's bodyguard, you saw him at King's Landing."

"The giant," said Jorah, remembering the hulking, silent figure that stood never more than three feet from Cersei Lannister. Supposedly he had fallen in single combat against Oberyn Martell and suffered for days before succumbing to the various poisons from the Dornish prince's blade, but either the reports had been incorrect or he was—something else now. Clegane planned to battle his brother now, at the most inopportune moment when there was a war going on.

"Gregor Clegane, the Mountain," said Arya Stark.

Jorah saw remorse and empathy flash across his queen's face as she regarded Clegane. "Your family?"

"I wouldn't call him that, but we share blood and I aim to spill his until he's good and dried out. It won't hurt your plans to let me go and I'd like to see which of you aims to stop me."

"Lady Sansa both requested and ordered that you remain here and you ignored both—"

"She can request and orders all she likes. I'm not her sworn shield, I'm not her bannerman. I'll go where I damn well please."

"There may not be a man here who can stop you, but I do have two dragons to bar your path," said Daenerys. Her threat registered heavily with Clegane, for he knew that their greatest strength was fire and that was the only thing that could prevent him from walking out this very moment, never mind how much they seemed interested in him. If their mother commanded it, they would attack or hold him, whichever she preferred.

"Damn it all to hells, is my business really that much of a bother that we need a war council to address it?" asked Clegane in aggravation. "You lot know how to waste valuable time arguing over something that's not worth a damn to anyone but the people who are involved and last I checked, that was me and no one else in this room."

"If you are to be snooping around the Red Keep, full of the knowledge that you possess, and happen to fall into Cersei's hands before you manage to confront your brother, you can imagine that we are more than slightly concerned with how much unpleasantness you would have to endure before it loosened your tongue," said Lord Varys.

"And a shit lot of good it would do her," said Clegane, seething at the bald advisor. "By the time she thinks to ask me anything valuable, you'll already be knocking on her door. Nothing's been said here that she doesn't already know, so if she gets a hold of me before I get a hold of my brother, you'll still be perfectly safe, Lord Eunich."

"You will show restraint when addressing those in this room you do not mingle well with, my lord," said Daenerys austerely. "But I cannot ignore the fact that you were part of that company that went beyond the Wall and the only survivor of the remaining five who I have not been able to reward for your efforts. If it is your wish to go, neither my dragons nor I will not stop you, but I will request that you not travel alone. I will send Ser Jorah Mormont with you."

That certainly was not part of the plan and Jorah was about to protest his queen's decision before realizing that that argument would be best served in private so as not to question her in front of a people who did not fully trust her.

"I'll go as well," said Arya Stark. "I might even be able to get into the castle on my own and kill Cersei while she's sleeping. The rest of you can keep her soldiers busy. And if you'd like to reward me for killing the Night King, Your Grace, this is how."

"The fuck you are," said Clegane. "I'm not spending another month on the road with you, let alone a day."

"You will ride to King's Landing and seek your own justice, but you will do so with the company I have assigned to you," said Daenerys. "Or you will march with Jon Snow and the rest of the army six days hence. Or, you will remain here in chains for the duration of the war. I leave the decision up to you."

"That's hardly a decision."

"You have three options, my lord, surely one of them must appeal to you."

"Aye, the one I had walking in here where I'm the only one to go."

"You may not recognize authority when it is given, but you will obey this command, Sandor Clegane, or you will not be going anywhere. I will hear no more on the matter other than your decision, and let it be now while you still have one."

Clegane tore his fingernails through the soft wood of the table and Jorah stepped back a pace in case the former upended it but instead the man pointed warningly at Jorah and then Arya Stark. "If either of you gets me killed before I get to my brother, you'd best hope there's not some fucking secondary Night King beyond the Wall to raise me from the dead because I'll come back to eat both of you alive."

Jorah did not take offense to the comment, for this was the norm as far as insults went from Clegane, but he had no intention of getting the man killed because he did not intend to go with him to King's Landing. He would speak with Daenerys and plead his case to counter whatever reason she had for sending him away.

Lastly, Clegane rounded on Lady Sansa, glowering. "Happy now, are you?"

"You have my leave to go, my lord," said Daenerys, sparing Lady Sansa the task of trying to answer the angry dog.

Clegane lingered long enough to glower at Lady Sansa and then stormed out, not able to stand on ceremony one second longer and they could hear him shouting for some time down the passageway.

"Such a mild, agreeable man," said Lord Varys which earned a chuckle from Jorah despite his attempts to conceal it.

Tyrion cleared the bad taste of the argument from the air as he brought them back to the more pressing matters. "Now, then, returning to the task at hand, the matter of personal bodyguards if Jon Snow and Grey Worm are protecting me and Ser Jorah and Sandor Clegane are not present…"

/ /

Jorah had stopped listening entirely after Daenerys announced that he would not be in her company for the siege. He did not need or want to know who would be given the task of protecting the queen because there would be no one to take his place. He would not be going with Sandor Clegane and Arya Stark, of that he was determined. He had not come through the seven hells to be sent off on a self-serving mission of Sandor Clegane's instead of being by his queen's side during the battle that would bring her to victory.

He waited until they were quite alone in her quarters, asking for a private audience with her to address his qualms, but she already knew his reasoning for wanting to speak to her and breached the subject before he could.

"You don't approve of my decision to send you away, and I would expect nothing less from the man who has served by my side for so long, but my decision is still final."

"Does Sandor Clegane's safety merit the jeopardy of yours, my queen?" asked Jorah. "Is that man's life worth that of mine, Lady Sansa's own sister, and possibly yours if I am not there to protect you?"

"You think quite highly of your ability to defend me as if Jon Snow, Grey Worm, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and my dragons are incapable of doing what you can do, Ser Jorah," said Daenerys with some amusement.

"I do not joke, not about this. Why would you do the one thing I have always fought to avoid?"

"We cannot think of ourselves in times such as these, Ser Jorah. We must think of those whose needs are direr than ours."

Since when was Lady Sansa's fondness for Sandor Clegane a dire situation? And when did that merit the queen removing her own Queensguard to protect a brute of a man like Clegane? Jorah could not, for the life of him, see the wisdom in this decision.

"You would send me away to grant Lady Sansa some peace of mind? Forgive me, khaleesi, but there have not been many worse strategies than this."

"It is not strategy; it is an act of kindness."

"My queen—"

"You returned to my service, so serve me. I wish for you to go with this man."

"My place is by your side, khaleesi."

"But you cannot go where I will be in battle. My dragons will keep me safe in the sky and you would be on the ground with Jon and Grey Worm."

"But I would be _in _the battle. Against the army of the dead, I commanded the Dothraki and then helped man the walls when I was unseated from my horse. I came to you as you fell from Drogon and I know that you claim he would never allow you to come to harm in the skies, but that does not mean he might not come to harm and if he does, I desire to be there, to defend both of you."

"No, my dear knight, you will go with Sandor Clegane. He is dear to Sansa Stark as you are to me and she fears for him in a way that only a woman understands. By sending you, the man I trust with my life, I am easing her mind. You know she doubts me and does not support me despite the strength and courage I have shown her with my army. In this small gesture, I hope to show her that I can be more than what she believes me to be and I genuinely believe that she and I will be able to bond over this experience. I must gain a friend in her, not just an ally, if I am to have her cooperation and have her accept me as queen."

So Jorah was being replaced to get a foot in the door with Sansa Stark's friendship? To say he was irate was a grave understatement.

"Go with Sandor Clegane and Arya Stark, protect them, and meet me again once I have taken King's Landing. You will not fail, I have faith in you."

"I do not fear failure, my queen, I fear that I will be unable to assist in the battle to come if I am elsewhere."

"I do not want you in the battle to come. Your mission is no less dangerous, infiltrating King's Landing to allow Sandor Clegane to deal with his brother and if the gods be good, for Arya Stark to do the same for Cersei. If you succeed, there might not be a battle, but I would still have you far from it. I will not risk you in open war again. There is nowhere safe for either of us, but I will never allow you to come to such harm as you have already. I need your council, your kindness, and you in the years to come when I rebuild my kingdom."

Now was the time, the only time, before there might never be another.

_Tell her. Tell her everything_.

Jorah knelt before her, not trusting himself to speak for fear that she would hear the quiver in his voice. He had an uneasy feeling about this parting, a feeling of foreboding, a bad omen.

Daenerys lowered herself onto her knees and took his hands, squeezing hard with watery eyes. She was afraid, as always, that this parting might be their last and that his luck would no longer hold and yet she was still ordering him to leave her.

He brought his lips to her hands and she leaned forward to touch her forehead against his, knowing what he wanted to say and encouraging him to say it, even though he knew that she would not return his affections. His love for her was no secret and she knew it was what kept him at her side, but she would let him say it again if he so desired. He could not. It would only shatter him to hear himself profess his love for her and see the sadness in her eyes as she knew that she could not accept him in the same way.

"Be safe, my queen, until I come back to you."

"Until we are reunited, then, my brave one."

/ /

Tyrion Lannister waited without his room to see him off as soon as he had risen at the faintest hint of dawn. "You are more eager to be on your way than Clegane. He might still even be asleep."

"Think again, Imp," said Clegane himself, sweeping by the two of them and calling back at Jorah over his shoulder, "Within the half hour, Mormont, don't dawdle."

Jorah let his door close behind him, feeling slightly ill. He had left many a rooms in his years: his quarters on Bear Island with his belongings, the room he shared with his wife, the room in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, the solitary cell in the Citadel, the lonely tower room at Dragonstone, and now this space, little more than a closet, but the one place that had felt like home more than all of his previous abodes. He was loathe to leave it.

He let Tyrion lead, pretending to listen to the man's words as they followed Clegane outside. Dawn was coming in colorless and cold and Jorah fastened his riding gloves on tighter to fight back the chill.

"As we prepare for yet another battle, I have to wonder what our fallen comrades might be doing at this very moment," said Tyrion, inhaling the freshness of a new day and then choking on the smoke that came up from the armory's fires as the lad Gendry began his daily tasks at the forge. "Might we have valued more wisdom gained from books long forgotten from Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch? Surely Brienne of Tarth would be in the Queensguard to safeguard your position until your return. And young Lady Lyanna…"

Jorah bowed his head in memory of his fallen cousin. She would have had something to say about Sandor Clegane's mission, might even have frightened him into silence and Jorah might have found himself not participating in this monumental waste of time.

"Your cousin was a fierce young woman, Mormont. She took pride in her people, she stood tall at half the height of men, and she took no shit from anyone, big or small. Your father was just as fierce and fair in judgment. I had enormous respect for both of them. But you aren't of the same stock, my friend. You're a warrior, a bear, but you don't have the commanding presence that your other family members had."

"Is that meant to insult me or inspire me?" asked Jorah.

"It is merely an observation. I found myself trying to piece this merry band of potential assassins together in my head. Sandor Clegane, the Hound, the largest man to fight for the queen's side, the grouchiest shit in the Seven Kingdoms and a contender with myself for most colorful insult-maker. Arya Stark, savior of the Seven Kingdoms, skilled fighter, silent stalker. And you, Ser Jorah Mormont of the Queensguard, disagreeable at worst, loyal companion at best, brooding when needs be, less than talkative otherwise, wise counselor. No one could have placed the three of you together, and yet here you are. Perhaps it is a good thing that you have less of a presence than the other members of your family, for I don't believe you and Clegane would make it halfway down the road before the two of you came to blows. There is only room for one dominant male in your party, and so you must be the advisor to him that you were to the queen. If you put forth the same devotion to protecting him as you do our queen, I feel strongly that both of you will return."

"You would not have me protect Arya Stark?"

"She killed the greatest enemy our world has ever seen. Do _you_ think she requires protection?"

No, for a girl of no more than ten-and-seven, she certainly did not need anyone's protection, least of all Jorah's.

"Shift yourself or wait for me to come back out and trample you, little lord, you're holding up my damned traveling party," said Clegane, carrying a collection of saddlebags over his shoulders as he headed for the stables.

"Do you still have the coin I gave you when you parted Dragonstone for the lands beyond the Wall?" asked Tyrion suddenly.

Jorah patted his boot. He did not tell Tyrion this, but he had kept the coin with him during the Great Battle, believing that it might just hold some sort of luck for him. As silly of a thing it was to trust in trinkets, his meeting with Tyrion had not been chance and the coin was a reminder of that.

"Hold onto it yet, my friend, and return it to me as we sit the small council table in the Red Keep," said Tyrion, grasping Jorah's hand firmly. "And remember, our queen needs you."

The same parting words he had given Jorah as he departed the beaches, bound for beyond the Wall. They had favored him last time; they might just do so again.

As Daenerys had requested, the stablemaster gifted Jorah with a brilliant bronze stallion named Oris, apparently the eighth in a long line of such noble beasts all given the same name as his sire. The horse was well-mannered and quiet, which Jorah appreciated, for he had had his share of finicky and feisty horses and he knew which he preferred. As he set about to loading his belongings onto the horse's back, he fed Oris a carrot to establish the bond between horse and rider, for Jorah would need it if he was to take the beast so far.

There would not be need of so many blankets the further south they traveled, but they could expect at least a week's worth of miserable weather, then more of it in the form of mud and rain as they entered the Riverlands. Food could be caught or bought, water could be gathered from streams, and bedding could be made if it became too much for his horse to carry him, for he did not expect that he would get many chances to exchange horses on the road with Clegane who would want to avoid interaction with others as much as possible. The less people knew that the Hound was on the road again, the better. Still, Jorah took the pouch of gold Daenerys had given him and dropped it into one of the saddlebag pockets.

"Won't do you much good to pack sacks of gold, Mormont, I don't plan on letting many men see us long enough to guess who we are," said Clegane, as Jorah knew he would.

"It could buy a man's silence if we happen upon the wrong sort of them."

"Silence buys a man's silence. Coin buys his treachery because then he's got a fat pocket and the liberty to tell whoever the fuck he wants."

"Coin could be useful," said Jorah, stuffing the sack of it into his saddlebag all the same. He did not approve of slitting a man's throat on the off chance that the man might tell some innkeeper down the road of what he had seen.

"What'll be useful is if you can tell me now if you snore because if we get thirty miles from the castle to bed down and I find out that you sound like a bloody whale, I'll gut you right there."

"I couldn't say, as I'm not often awake to hear myself if I do," said Jorah curtly.

"You're dead-silent when you sleep, Mormont," said Tormund Giantsbane, inviting himself into the conversation as he so often did. "On the frozen lake," he added when Jorah gave him a look of confusion, unable to recall sleeping in the same room as the wildling. "We slept in shifts those few days, huddled together like piglets for warmth. You didn't sleep much, but when you did, I could have sworn you had died. You were as still as those corpses watching us from the shore."

"There's your answer then, Clegane," said Jorah.

"But you," Tormund lightly punched Clegane in the chest. "You tossed about like you were dancing. Dreaming of fighting or fucking, you almost knocked me into the lake when you kicked out at me. So I would not lay my bedroll beside him if I were you," Tormund advised Jorah, offering out his hand. Jorah shook it with no ill feelings toward the wildling. His father may have hunted Tormund and his kind, but the man proved that wildlings were more than savages and Jorah respected him, even if it was rather difficult to like him.

"Where will you go now?" asked Jorah.

"Nowhere just yet. As a favor to Jon Snow, we will watch his castle and guard his crippled brother until the war ends, then we will go home."

"But you have no need. These lands are yours as much as they are ours."

"Aye, but they're not home," Tormund reasoned, and Jorah understood.

"Then we part ways, my friend."

"You have bear's blood in you, Mormont, and bears belong to the wild. If ever you venture north of the Wall and come across my people, tell them you're a friend of mine, and I'll see to it that we share a campfire." Tormund once again ran his hand vigorously through Jorah's head, mussing his hair in an act of camaraderie that Jorah did not understand. "And as for you, Clegane, if you survive, you should think about joining us. Those kissed by fire are blessed north of the Wall."

"I've been beyond the Wall and I wasn't anymore fucking blessed up in that shithole than I am down in this one," said Clegane moodily, but Tormund extended his hand all the same and Clegane grasped it, shaking it once.

Returning to his saddlebags, Clegane muttered to Jorah, "If you talk as much as that one, this is going to be a very short journey."

"Stop projecting what you think your problems with me will be," said Jorah. "I have no more wish to be joining you than you do to have me along, but we're stuck in each other's company so as long as you guard my back, I'll try my best to not talk your ear off."

Jorah knew enough about himself that he figured he could go the entire journey without uttering a word to Clegane. He had managed to travel for days without saying a word to Tyrion Lannister, so avoiding conversation with Clegane would be no bother whatsoever. It was Clegane who would have the problem, dropping random insults in a state of boredom. And Arya Stark would be thrown into the middle of it, which automatically earned her sympathy from Jorah. He did not know much about her, other than that she was reclusive and had a history with Clegane, so at least there would be someone else to take over the task of arguing with the man if Jorah grew weary of it.

Had it been anyone else, Jorah would have refused outright, but as he bartered with Daenerys over this foolhardy mission, he recalled that he did owe the man his life twice over and had been meaning to find a way to repay him. If that meant assisting in a covert mission, the better to allow that the man could chop off his brother's head, then so be it. Having no siblings himself, Jorah could only imagine the betrayal he might have felt if his own brother had scarred him as severely as Clegane's had. It gave him a newfound appreciation for Clegane's surliness and isolation and if all Jorah could do was make sure nothing stabbed the man in the back as he ended his brother, he would be sure to do it and call the debt paid.


	13. Chapter 13: Desire

**SANSA**

Sleep would not come to her as she dreaded the dawn. Daenerys had promised to try and make the Hound reconsider his position, but only succeeded in getting Arya thrown into the suicidal undertaking as well. She assigned her own loyal knight, the man who had nearly died shielding her and who was so madly in love with her, to the Hound as if the latter needed protection, as if that would somehow ease Sansa's mind.

And he had said that her attention to him had been noted as had her lack of it toward her own people when his statement that he would be leaving was the worst possible thing he could tell her to make her refocus her efforts on the war. He had been so _cold_ to her in the two days following, giving almost no verbal instruction during her final training sessions, leaving Bronn to step in for him. He only would move to position her in the proper form, adjusting her arm or correcting her posture, and when the sessions ended, he left her to bathe without a word. The first words he had spoken to her were at the war council and they had been delivered with malice, undermining her position as Wardeness of the North in his open noncompliance.

Then he had the gall to turn the situation around as if _she_ had suggested that Daenerys give him traveling companions. He was furious, either at her or at the circumstances, and she had tossed about on her bed throughout the night trying to pinpoint the moment he had turned into this reincarnation of the loyal Lannister dog in his cruel delivery instead of the man she had come to know in his month at Winterfell. One month, hardly any time at all in the changing of seasons and not enough time to become well acquainted with anyone, but she knew him well before this, or at least understood a part of him. What she understood from him was that he had been grooming her to interpret his moods, his words as well as his silence and right now, his seclusion from her suggested that he wanted her to come to him, not the other way around.

She could have done it in the dead of night, stolen down to his room directly below her, entered, and begged him once more to reconsider. But she could not put herself in that position, could not chance being alone with him in his room on the eve of his departure. He had become daring of late and she did not trust where their exchange might end up. She had been in danger of that very thing when he first told her that he had not forgotten about his brother in King's Landing and that he would be taking his leave of Winterfell soon thereafter. She thought that telling him that his abandonment of her was not an option, but he had tried to get her to say something else and she would not enter into this battle with him.

Well before dawn, she dressed herself in her newly finished leather tunic and cotton breeches, fashioned to mimic Arya's. They were strangely uncomfortable not in texture, but sensation. How could men walk about like this with restriction against their thighs, hugging their legs? She felt as good as naked as if she were revealing herself in allowing the natural curves of her body to be seen freely.

Placing her leg in its brace, she let herself out of her own room, figuring that with the early start the Hound planned to get, he would not come for her this morning anyway to both avoid confrontation and make her labor for the prize she wanted. No one stood sentry outside her room for which she normally would have had reason to scold the guilty party, but that blame was the Hound's alone. He took most of her night shifts and then let a Stark guard take over just before daybreak to find some sleep but either he had already left or he had never been there to begin with.

She busied herself in the courtyard by running over the forms the Hound and Bronn had taught her in her head, but then realized that she need no longer hide her actions in the godswood from her people if they saw her dressed up like her sister. She met the earliest of risers, Gosman the kennelmaster, and watched him feed the dogs, thinking painfully of Ramsay's own mutts, now feeding the crops as they were too wild for Gosman to retrain.

From her place behind the wrought-iron gates to the kennels, she watched Arya enter the yard first and gather her supplies. Not long after came the Hound and following him was Ser Jorah and Tyrion. Then Tormund the wildling bade them farewell only to be replaced by Ghost who was clearly in distress that two of his newly discovered favorite individuals were about to leave without him. Sansa did not originally know where Ghost spent his nights if not with Jon, but Jon often bedded with Daenerys and she did not approve of the wolf sharing her quarters, so he was left to curl up elsewhere. The Hound had revealed to her that Ghost had stolen into his room a handful of times and slept on the floor beside the bed and she had heard Ser Jorah mention in passing that Ghost stayed with him, taking up what little room there remained leftover on his cot. It would be understandable that the wolf was now upset.

Ghost was circling both the Hound and Ser Jorah at the stables, whining, but Ser Jorah was the only one of the two to take a knee and ruffle the wolf's head appreciatively. When the knight saw to his saddlebags, Ghost turned to the Hound expectantly, but the Hound was doing his best to disregard the wolf's insistent pawing at his leg. The Hound set his saddle in place and Ghost stood well back, knowing that a spooked horse could very well kick him in the head, but once the Hound sought after another saddle blanket, Ghost fell into step with him.

"Stay," said the Hound, but Ghost followed after him all the same. "Godsdammit, wolf, _stay_."

"Ghost, to me," called Jon, approaching them, solemn of face as ever. He swept up Arya in a meaningful embrace and clasped hands with Ser Jorah, speaking words Sansa could not hear. She could no longer wait as Jon gave the Hound a grateful nod. She hobbled away from the kennels to where a horse stood tied to a hitching post. It didn't matter whose horse it was; it was hers for the time being. She gripped the saddle horn, placed her foot in the stirrup, and swung her bad leg over its broad side, steering it forward to cut in front of the three departees as they made to lead their own horses out into the yard.

"Flown from your perch to see us off?" asked the Hound as Sansa blocked his way.

"How did you even get up there with that leg of yours?" asked Arya.

"I would have words with you privately before you leave," said Sansa, asking Arya to take Ser Jorah away with the smallest expression. Her sister elbowed Ser Jorah and the two of them backed out of the stables with both of their horses and the Hound's following, letting the doors swing shut behind them.

"What is it, little bird?" asked the Hound once they were alone, hands upon his hips.

"I wish to speak to you on level ground, not looking down on you."

Heaving a dramatic sigh that she knew was for her benefit only, he reached up, placing his hands just above her waist on either side and she clutched his forearms as he lowered her into the mud. Without her crutch, she had nothing to lean on to take the weight off of her bad leg, so she continued to hold onto him. This wouldn't help her plead her case, but now that she was on the ground she couldn't very well ask him to toss her back up into her saddle.

"Well?" he prompted as she tried to collect her thoughts on the matter.

"I am requesting one last time that you stay and wait to travel with Jon," she said with as much dignity as she could, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that this was the dilemma that had made sleep evade her.

"I'm reminding you one last time that the answer is still fucking no."

She struck out at him though she knew her slap would deliver almost no pain. It was a stupid move on her part, hitting the man who she was leaning on for support, but he was large enough that any attack from her would hardly register for him. It was the notion that mattered more than the act itself. He didn't move at all, cracking a lopsided grin at her as she lowered her hand while still clutching his forearm in the other.

"That wasn't because I'm leaving; that was for kissing you and leaving you hungry for more."

_So he does remember_.

"No," Sansa insisted, refusing to let the noticeable blush growing up her neck deter her from saying what needed to be said. "That was because you don't listen when people try to keep you from doing something stupid."

Now he was laughing at her and it infuriated her. He still looked down on her like she was the empty-headed girl he had tried to liberate from King's Landing, not the woman of Winterfell that she had become. Her struggles, her trials to become more than just a child who let herself fall into unfortunate circumstances all meant nothing to him because he was still of the mindset that she knew nothing.

"_I _don't listen? Where was this logic when I tried to make you leave the night of the Blackwater? You did stupid things, little bird, and I tried to show you the right path, the one that would keep you safe, yet _I'm_ the idiot here? I take back what I told you; you haven't changed one bit."

She went to hit him again but he deflected her blow, slamming her arm against the stable door as the other wrenched itself free of her grip and closed around her shoulder. "It won't do any good to hit me for telling the truth now when it's all I've ever done the whole time you've known me. You don't get to be angry at me for being who I've always been but only now do you understand how ugly that makes me."

"Let go of me," she said firmly.

He did, as quickly as he had put his hand on her. He recoiled like a beaten dog having finally overstepped its boundaries.

"If you walk out those gates, you walk to your death," said Sansa, choosing not to comment on his harsh handling of her.

"Aye, most likely," he agreed without expression.

"Why?"

"Because there's nothing left anywhere for me but in King's Landing, with my sword in my brother's throat."

"Your vengeance will get you killed. Your brother will die in the siege of King's Landing when Daenerys takes the throne and she can do that without your help."

"But it's not her right. This is for me and for my sister. No one has the right to claim his life but me. Wouldn't you say the same of Ramsay Bolton? After what he did to you, after breaking your maidenhead and having you bleed all over his sheets and enjoying the sight of you in pain as he raped you, wouldn't you say that his life was yours to take?"

He was trying to wound her in the way that only he could to make her back off or worse, plead harder with him. He wanted to make her work for him, as he had done for her these past weeks. If she wanted him to remain with her, she would have to put in the effort that he had without being asked because simply telling him that he had to stay would achieve nothing.

"His life _was _mine to take, as your brother's is yours, but Daenerys could seize the Red Keep and everyone inside, put your brother in chains, and deliver him to you so that you might have your justice and live to relish it. Give her that chance."

"I told you, girl, Gregor won't be hiding away when your queen storms the city. He might even be gone a week before she arrives. Cersei can't know when the army is closing in because the moment she gets wind of it, she'll flee and she'll take my brother with her."

Sansa would have stamped her foot in frustration, but she only had the one to stand on, so she tightened her hold on the Hound's arms and tried to shake him to no effect. "This decision is selfish and pig-headed for someone who has skirted the Stranger's summons so often."

"This decision was made for me by my brother when he decided to shove my face in the flames. Just like your decision was made for you by your father when he took you to King's Landing instead of leaving you here. We both would have come out better on the other side if things happened the way they should have, but the world is shit and it didn't happen that way. You took your control back when you took the castle against Ramsay, but my brother's not yet in the ground, so I can't have the happy ending you found for yourself."

"You could, but you refuse to see it that way. Your decision is about to get you, Ser Jorah, and my sister killed. Ser Jorah was assigned to you, but Arya is choosing to go with you. She's not going to kill Cersei; she's going because you're going, because she thinks she owes it to you. For her sake, please stay."

The Hound took her face in his hands, gentle hands, rough skin, but their purpose was to make her look directly at him without the option of looking away. His scarred flesh was mostly covered by his hair, damp from freezing over and then thawing out in the morning chill. The burned skin did not scare her as it once did, but it still appeared to give him an alternate personality as opposed to his unmarred side. Each wanted something from her, but it seemed that his unburned side was the one that demanded the greater reward from her.

"Fuck it all, you still can't say it, can you?" he asked softly. "After everything, how far you've come, you can't say what you want to. That right there is the girl I knew and until she can become a woman and speak her damn mind, she has no right to give me orders to stay."

He took so many liberties with her, being this close, speaking to her however he liked, not troubling to avoid the public eye when arguing with her. If someone walked in at this moment, they would assume that a lover's quarrel was in progress for no soldier, no lord, no knight would dare touch a lady unwed as he was touching her now. It was her own fault for encouraging this behavior instead of discouraging it when she had the chance.

_But you noticed it. You knew it and you let it be anyway._

And he wanted her to say—what? That she didn't want him to leave, that she feared for him because she loved him? She didn't and couldn't, not after Ramsay who had all but ruined men, marriage, and love making for her. She could never be held by a man in such a manner again, too fearful of where it might lead. The Hound wanted more from her than she could give, but he had no right lecturing her about it when he couldn't say the words himself. Telling her that he had arousal for her and telling her that he loved her were two entirely different things and he had only said the former when drunk.

"Does the little bird have anything she can say?" he asked, his gruff voice as gentle as his hands—for her. He would not speak this tenderly with anyone else and he was making an enormous effort to do it now in the hope that she would soften to him.

_Say it,_ his face pleaded.

If she said it, even if she lied, would he stay? If he believed that she wanted him here for her alone, would he turn his back on his lifelong revenge? He might, but she would never know. She had to let him be. If he would not stay because she asked, he would not stay for the right reasons and she could not lie to him in pleading with him to stay when there was nothing she could offer him in exchange.

So she would let him go.

"Gods be with you, Sandor Clegane."

Here in the stables of Winterfell, she would hurt him for the last time, for he would not come back. She couldn't stop him and she couldn't go with him, so this was where she had to say goodbye and know the meaning of the word, know that there would be no hope of their paths crossing again in the distant future.

_No, little bird, I won't hurt you_, he had once said, and then was gone, but she had been too consumed with thoughts of the battle outside the city walls to think of what that meant at the time. When the city rejoiced that Tywin Lannister and the Tyrells had come to their aid, Sansa was made up to look presentable at court but there was a very large and noticeable absence beside the King where the Hound should have stood. She missed his presence much after that, when she was promised to Tyrion, when she undressed on her wedding night, when Petyr Baelish kissed her in the snowy gardens of the Eyrie, when she recited her vows before the gods to accept Ramsay Bolton as her lord and husband, when she set Ramsay's own hounds on him. Yes, she had missed Sandor Clegane's presence and thought of him often, though only now did she recall all those times she had brought his scarred face to mind. How she had wished she had gone with him, how she wondered if he was dead, how she had felt years of frustrating worry relieve itself from her heart when she saw him backed by flames of the crypts, holding his hand out to take her from harm once more.

She truly believed that the gods meant for them to be reunited and that he would find peace in the North as her sworn shield. These past weeks had seen him far more carefree than he had ever been and he had smiled sparingly, not at her necessarily, but because of her. He had found some small measure of happiness here, but his brother's shadow grew larger and there was nothing Sansa could present to him that she hadn't already to make him turn his scarred face from that path.

_He's not going to come back. When you say your farewells, you are sending him to die. The man before you is dead to you now._

"Aye, that's what I thought," he said in defeat when Sansa did not have the response he was after. "Remember this face, little bird. Remember me if you can when you sing your pretty songs to your children."

"Sandor, please, don't let that be the last thing you say to me."

"The rest isn't anything you'd care to hear."

He turned away from her and made it all of two feet when she felt herself grasping at his arm to stop him, suddenly desperate. What she planned to do if she did manage to pull him to a halt hadn't even occurred to her yet.

His movements were wicked fast; he shoved her up against the stable door, pinning her arms over her head. He searched her face for some sign of truth, an indication that would make him forget his life's mission in favor of her. He must have found something that she was unaware that she was offering, for he lowered his lips to brush against hers. Not at all drunk this time, he had perfect aim and he sought out her bottom lip to taste her. She let her eyes fall shut but gave him nothing, no return of this affection—if it could even be called that. She had to be empty to him, not that it deterred him.

He released her hands, leaving her to do with them what she wished, and her first instinct was to grab onto him to help her through this whirlwind of baffling emotions and feelings coursing through her but instead she touched them lightly to his chest, wondering if he would take that as a plea for more or a sign that she wanted him to back away. She wondered if she cared how he took it. She could hear his breath rising heavily in his chest and heard him grasp at something beside her to stabilize himself. His teeth bit with the gentlest pressure into her lower lip, casting her into a new realm of sensations that she had never experienced before. His powerful mouth pried hers open and the next moment, she felt what could only be his tongue flicking out to touch hers, duel with hers, and dominate hers.

Sansa was petrified in odd fascination at this entirely new sensation. How many kisses had she been given in her life from men who desired her? Joffrey's one and only had been soft, a promise of what was to come before she had seen him for his true self, but she had been too young to understand what a kiss was meant to convey. It had sent her little heart aflutter with a girl's innocent hope. Littlefinger's kisses were odd, bewildering things that she could never interpret, for other than those, he did not make a move that suggested he wanted her, however much he admitted that he loved her in the end. Ramsay's kiss had been cold, harsh, and nauseating. He never kissed her after their wedding night. He bit her and clawed at her, but he never gave her another kiss, which was all the same to her because it would have been a lie to accept such a thing anyway.

But this, this overpowering surge of longing from the Hound was completely different from the others in that it made her want _more_. Her core made an uncomfortable jerk that turned into something less than pain, something she could not put words to. She felt heat resonating between her legs, at her breast, in her cheeks, leaving her extremities cold to prepare for what her body thought would be a coupling. This raw passion from a man known only for his anger confused her but more than anything, it frightened her. She had never felt this in response to another man before and the fact that she should experience it now, with _him_, was perplexing and wrong. He was the largest of them all, the one who could crush her if he tried, who could take her if he so desired, but he was kissing her and tasting her in a tender way that catered to her need as a woman to be loved.

_Push him away. Make him stop._

Her body fought with itself over him. Every fiber of her being wanted his caresses and kisses but the logical part of her brain that often spoke with her mother's clipped tone dashed her body's wants, reminding her that she was a woman ruined by one man and that her body would regret accepting him once the pain returned to her.

He was gasping for breath against her lips now, clutching the back of her neck to hold her against him, his mouth moving over hers, seeking a new position to sample more of her. He groaned into her, tempting her tongue forward with his own to suck on it and the sensation of it all made the juncture between Sansa's thighs grow steadily damper. Cupping the under-thigh of her good leg in his massive hand, he hitched it up further and placed it around his waist for her heel to rest against the curve of his buttock and her mouth dropped open further in surprise at his boldness. Taking advantage of that, he pushed his tongue into her mouth once again to consume her further as he took most of her weight and she felt her broken leg leave the ground.

With her lower body wrapped around him in an embrace equivalent to two eager young lovers stealing away into a broom cupboard for a moment alone, she ought to have been mortified, but she wasn't. She nearly gagged herself to conceal a moan rising in her throat. He couldn't be allowed to hear what he was doing to her and how it _ignited _her.

_Stop this now,_ she told herself.

She did not want what he proposed with his body because despite his enthusiastic approach to it, she was doing everything within her power to not react to him. If she let him continue, she would only be prolonging his suffering in allowing him to have her in this way. It was not his right to even attempt this with her-said the laws of men. She had promised herself that if ever she had healed enough to take a man as her own, it would be by her terms and not because some man or another ordered it and orchestrated it. She lived by her own laws now and the queen herself lived by those laws that buggered the ones made by men. In the queen's new world, a woman could pursue whomever she desired.

Bypassing what her body so obviously wanted right now, Sansa demanded an answer from herself: did she desire him?

Then she felt his fingers fondle the side of her breast, reaching for the laces that bound her inside her new leather tunic.

_He means to have me right here,_ she thought wildly.

He clutched at her possessively as his pelvis ground against hers and there was absolutely no mistaking the heat and hardness she felt there. Not a move of passion or affection, but of wanton desire, a need to claim her. His breaths turned lighter in tone in Sansa's ears. She was no longer clutched in his arms but pinned down on her stomach, being ridden and raped by a man who tore her wedding dress in two to access her. He wanted her body, not her. He wanted how her body could make his feel; it had been his definitive goal. Her body was his ultimate conquest, what he had been working toward.

_That was Ramsay, not him_.

She cried out in pain as he tore through her maidenhead without bothering to prepare her. She heard the muffled weeping of Theon Greyjoy behind her.

She felt his hand squeezing her breast.

_You _will_ stop him now._

_But he is my lord husband._

_He is the Hound._

She could no longer tell which sensations were real and which ones part of her past. It was not the Hound who held her, it was Ramsay, and her desire sputtered out and died like a flickering candle in the wind. Reason evaded her. The painful memories swirled into the present, blinding her to all else but the lingering agony that had been left in her by the man to whom she had been wed. It would always be there, preventing her from pursuing any sort of sexual gratification. It would turn suitors away and cast her into a life of loneliness because she could not separate her fears for that man from the wants of others. All men were Ramsay and all men would hurt her if she allowed it.

She would have to wound the Hound again, finally summoning the courage to tell him to stop because she couldn't be intimate with a man ever again. She felt the tears welling behind her closed eyelids as she let her hands drop from his chest. She had willingly given him nothing apart from that small touch even as he continued to explore her and grasp at her, even as her body demanded more, but perhaps her lack of reaction to him finally registered and as it had been the one time before, he was the one to break the kiss. Both breathless, they processed the extended moment of raw action with him still with his hand curved around the side of her breast. She saw what might have been hurt in his eyes, but he was too quick in hiding it as he pulled back, set her down, and let go of her with a disgusted scoff.

"You get what you expect," he muttered. "Remember _that_ when you lay with your husband, whoever the fucker is."

"Sandor, I—"

"No," he snarled, cutting her off before she could even think to form some sort of reply that would sate him. "I'd just as soon prefer you send me off with nothing at all than with some fucking falsehood, girl. Let it end here."

He didn't let her try to salvage anything of their quickly diminishing friendship, shoving his way out of the stables. She should have called to him to come back, she knew he would, but gods damn her, she couldn't. Her words died on her lips, still swollen and wet from his primal kissing. She couldn't tell him that because of Ramsay Bolton, other men were wasted on her, a woman too broken by another man's hand.

The door swung back in and her heart leaped into her throat, but it was only Arya, coming to investigate what private conversation was so important that she was not able to eavesdrop on it.

"What happened?" she asked, seeing Sansa's obvious look of distress.

Sansa didn't have to respond; her sister knew already.

"Did you kiss him back?"

"No," said Sansa, her ears burning. She hadn't, really, even though she did not reject it. And he had done more than just kiss her.

"That's cold of you."

"Are you saying I should have? The Lady of Winterfell should have thrown herself at the one man who refuses to listen to her and is openly, unabashedly insubordinate? What sort of message would that send?"

"To him, the right one. To everyone else, I don't think they'd care. He has no titles or claims, and he protects you, protects the people he should. Their lady taking a fancy to a man like him couldn't be any worse than their king giving up his title for a dragon queen from across the sea. The Hound may not be of the North, but he's of Westeros, and that's all the people ask for, really."

"I do not fancy him. And I have not now nor ever had a mind to take him as my consort like Jon did with Daenerys."

"Right, you'd have to have slept with him to be like Jon and her," said Arya smartly. "You know, my time with the Faceless Men taught me to detect lies as easily as you would read a book with bolded letters four times their natural size."

"I'm not lying."

"And you're not very good at it, either. You never were."

Had they still been children, Sansa would have screamed at her, but as women grown, Sansa had to treat her sister with some level of respect, even if she was absolutely irritated beyond measure with her.

"Not now or ever," she repeated. "I can't…with any man. Not after Ramsay. And that's why the Hound won't stay, because I can't give myself to him like he wants."

It was utter relief to tell someone else of her conundrum, someone who was family and though Arya was not their mother, she knew Sansa just as well. Though Sansa had to take into consideration that her mother had last seen her as a girl smitten with the young Prince Joffrey and did not know the first thing about the woman Sansa had become. Her mother would not have known what sort of advice to give her daughter who cared so much for this heavily emotionally and physically scarred man but who she could not surrender herself to. Her mother had not known the Hound, not like Arya did.

"I'll look out for him," said Arya, watching Sansa carefully.

"I'd rather you look out for yourself. I'll see you there, at Cersei's execution."

She wrapped her arms around her little sister, saying a proper goodbye and hoping that it was not final. The last time they had parted ways, they had left as children and returned as women and Sansa was determined that no such length of time would separate them at this turn. With her attentions almost entirely focused on the Hound, she had missed out these last weeks in trying to bridge the long-broken relationship with her little sister but Arya seemed to prefer the seclusion.

"Keep training," said Arya slyly. She offered out the Valyrian steel dagger that had changed many hands in recent history.

"No, Bran gifted that to you because he knew you would do it justice. You can't give it to me when I can't properly use it."

"Not yet."

Arya gave her one last lingering embrace and ran for her horse, for the Hound had begun shouting at her to get her arse out into the courtyard or be left behind. Both he and Ser Jorah were already mounted, their horses pacing in place, eager to be off. Arya swung herself up into her saddle and led the procession out the gate but beneath the cloister, the Hound's horse turned sideways, allowing him to look back and see Sansa standing where he had left her in the stable entryway.

He pulled on his horse's reins, striking the lone figure as he waited in the archway. He did not say it, but she could hear his words in her head, _Goodbye, little bird._

Sansa raised her hand in farewell to him and with a final nod that spoke of the mortal wound she had delivered to him, he urged his courser into a trot to catch up to his traveling companions. The guards closed the gate behind him and Ghost sat before them, letting out a long, mournful howl.

She slid down into the mud and hay-strewn floor, hugging her knees to her chest and holding back her tears to the best of her ability. He had wanted her to ask, to beg him to stay. She should have said it, said anything, anything but the ineffective stutters that came out of her mouth after he had kissed her. She would have found something, enough to give him pause, but his kiss had left her light-headed and somehow, dissatisfied, though not with his performance.

He was very much a man, as she was now all too aware, and she had felt herself responding to him in body even if her mind and heart could not commit to it. No, she felt unfulfilled, but had to remind herself that it was only because he had begun to prepare her for the intimate act and had left her without it, even though she knew she should not want it. Her mind had told him no, but she had done nothing to stop him, so he had brought her into full arousal and she hated how her body had betrayed her as if it did not remember the pain from the last man to lay hands on her. It was unfair that he should make her feel this way when she had told him that Ramsay had ruined her, but he was persistent in his pursuit of her. Only now that he was gone did she wish that she could have explained to him why she couldn't...

But she almost had. How close had she been to giving in to him? And what would she have done if they had made it that far, if he had accessed the flesh beneath her clothes? Would she have panicked once her senses came to her or would she have let him take her and hated him after?

_He stopped on his own. He stopped both times without you having to tell him._ That _is what differentiates him from Ramsay. If you did not want it, he would not have let it go that far._

And he wouldn't have. If she had called out to him to release her, he would have without hesitation, for he feared to hurt her and he would not have taken her against the stable wall if she did not want it. He would have done whatever she asked, except stay. He heeded her words with the blind loyalty of the dog for which he was named, but he would not let her be his distraction when he had yearned for his brother's death longer than she had even been alive. As someone who had fought for what she had ever since coming into enough power to obtain those things, she had done a terrible job of it this time, letting a man, a friend, something more, walk to his death.

She thought of Theon Greyjoy, the kraken who had become a wolf who would never hear her say that she was proud for him to be her father's ward. He would never know that in her eyes, he had died a wolf, a wolf come home to be with its pack.

No matter how desperately she tried to block it out, she saw a lonely pyre upon the fields, its sole occupant a large body with a burned face. Eyes closed forever, hands stilled and grasping a sword with an enormous handle. The wind caught at his hair but he would not feel its chill. Fire curdled beneath him, ready to claim the body that it had sampled many years ago. And he would never know that he, too, had died not a dog, but a wolf, traveled far and cast out by its kin until the pack accepted him as one of its own. The flames condemned his body and she stood to watch every bit of him burn until the smoldering pile of ash that remained was swept into the wind, carrying the last of him away.

"The fuck you doing sitting in horse shit out in the cold?"

Sansa perked her head up far enough off of her knees to see Bronn's shackles dangling over her head. Creeping up beside him was Ghost, having finished his howling once he realized no one would let him out to follow the Hound and Ser Jorah. A glance out the stable door told her that at least an inch of snow had already fallen which meant she had been inside her own head for the better part of an hour, maybe more. Bronn knelt before her, nudging her to get a response out of her.

"Your face is a ruddy mess, y'know that? You been crying out here, girl?"

"Don't call me that," she told him without any real conviction.

"Apologies, _m'lady_. Don't tell me you've worked yourself into a tizzy because the big man's gone on to King's Landing without you?"

"I'll not stand to have you mock me, ser."

"You will unless you can actually stand up to tell me otherwise. Come on, lass, you're weeping over nothing, I hope you realize that. He might just be the safest fucker in the world right now, what with the queen's best man and the slayer of the Night King at his back and with him being a tough shit to kill and all. The only way he could be any safer was if I'd have gone with 'im, but I'm here with you because there's still training to be done. You said you wanted to not be useless, so sitting here on your arse is definitely the best way to go in remedying that, aye?"

He held out his hands to her suggestively.

Sansa didn't know how he'd done it, but he had successfully managed to combat her sudden depressive state with his crude mannerisms. As bleak of a prospect it was to see the Hound and her sister head off into an uncertain future, they were formidable warriors, proven several times over in battle and with Ser Jorah beside them, there was no better suited party to take on the Mountain. With luck, timing, and the favor of whichever gods might be listening, they might just return home and then Sansa could explain to him why she had not fought harder to make him remain with her.

Home. House Stark, home of wolves and dragons, bears and krakens, and dogs. The home she had a responsibility to fight for whether by words or actions and with Bronn remaining behind, it would have to be actions unless he, too, gave up on her potential to become a warrior of House Stark rather than just a lady of it.

Ghost stepped in closer, watching Bronn for signs that he might attack Sansa, but to her surprise, Bronn offered out his hands to the wolf to sniff him and sense his intent and the wolf growled, leaning forward to take a whiff of Bronn. In the Hound's absence, Sansa did not know if Ghost would heed her if he attacked Bronn and she tried to call him off, but she need not have worried. Giving another growl, this time of contentment, Ghost sat back, still watching Bronn but with his hackles flattened.

Sana took Bronn's hands and he lifted her upright. He held out a small iron key to her and she gave him a reproachful frown.

"Liberated it from the big man's saddlebags. He must have forgotten that he had one of the two copies and with him off on a merry Mountain hunt, he won't be needing it as much as I will. But you'll notice that I've still got me shackles on and am handing over the key to you."

Shaking her head, Sansa set his wrists free and he then put one arm around her waist, securing her against him to escort her to the godswood. His hand at her side was not nearly large enough, not familiar enough as the one she was already missing. Bronn was the one to strap her into her training armor, fit her with her wooden casing, and hand her the sparring sword.

Ghost sat at a viewing distance, filling the position that had been the Hound's as he approved of Bronn being the only one who remained to protect Sansa.

Bronn planted himself before her with an inviting motion, lifting his sword to her. "Alright, Lady Stark, send out the she-wolf."

/ /

**|AUTHOR'S NOTE: Quick upload of second chapter in less than twelve hours because I'd been bouncing back and forth between this chapter and the last, so eager to get these words written down before I lost them. To any who might have doubts about the potential ship, be patient, my friends. We have not run aground and we are still sailing. ;)|**


	14. Chapter 14: What Might Have Been

**SANDOR**

"Rain's coming in," said Mormont as a few droplets pegged Sandor on the nose.

He was reminded of an equally obvious observation said by Thoros of Myr when Sandor had traveled with him. The priest had made a comment on the weather, stating that it was a bad night to be outdoors as the wind and snow pummeled their crew of travelers all of whom but Sandor served the bloody Lord of Light.

_"You've got real powerful magic to figure that out,"_ Sandor had said._ "Did the Lord of the Light whisper that in your ear? 'It's snowing, Thoros It's windy, gonna be a cold night."_

He had no more patience for the blatantly obvious now than he did then.

"You've got the senses the gods gave wolves, Mormont. Never would have figured that out myself if you hadn't told me."

Ten days on the road through snow drifts, moors, marshes, and now woodlands did not improve Sandor's attitude toward having company when he had thought to be traveling alone. The rain came down in sleets of freezing water and tricked them into thinking there were sunny days ahead as it disappeared for an hour or two before doubling back to pelt them from a different direction. Sandor was soaked, his clothes smelled of mildew, and he was miserable despite getting decent meals nearly every night thanks to the help of the girl and Mormont. They all were in a rather testy mood after saying their goodbyes at Winterfell.

Too many bloody goodbyes for Sandor's liking. This was why he avoided people and why isolation suited him. First the wildling, then Jon Snow, then the direwolf (and Sandor had to admit that this parting was by far the most difficult because he actually liked the wolf), then the fucking dragons. They had come for Mormont, intelligent beasts that they were, and bade him goodbye by nuzzling his armor. It was a wonder that the horses did not spook with the dragons so close, but Mormont set a hand upon each of the dragons' noses in farewell, then the green one had come around to Sandor and taken a whiff of his saddlebags before trying to shove his nose into Sandor's arse again.

"Don't start that," Sandor snapped and the dragon Rhaegal had punched him in the face with a heavily salivated tongue, leaving him sticky and in a worse mood than he had been fifty seconds prior when he was somewhat dry.

But the worst parting was the little bird.

Following the Dragon Queen's orders, Sandor had not wanted to speak to the little bird, peeved that she had gone to the woman for an edge in helping her secure Sandor's place in the army. He couldn't fault her entirely, but he knew the Targaryen woman was sending Mormont with him for the little bird's sake and the fact that the sister wanted to take part in Sandor's mission made him all but foam at the mouth. The task of carting the little bird from place to place was left to her sworn shield who had not been allowed in the war council for obvious reasons, but he had deliberately planned it that way so that she would be starved for him when she finally did return to him.

He could hear her shifting about in her bedroom as he stood just on the other side of her door. She would not expect him to be there his last night in the castle, but he had taken up position as he had every night for the better part of the last month and then gone to the sellsword with only a few hours until dawn, rousing him with a kick to the man's cot leg. Stealing the key from the guard six cots down, he released the sellsword from his bonds, beckoned him out of the barracks, and then given him his sword.

"As soon as you hear her moving around in there, you leave," he told the man.

"Thought sworn shields were supposed to stand by their charges at all times, apart from when they're asleep."

Sandor shoved the sellsword into the wall by the shoulder, digging his nails in to make his point. "When you hear her coming out, you leave, you shit."

"Alright, leave off already."

There were reasons of Sandor's own why he didn't want the sellsword tagging along behind the little bird once she was up and about. She would come to him at some point before his departure: in that she was predictable, and Sandor wanted their last interaction to be private in preparation of what he was steeling himself to do. In a few short hours, he might finally hear the words from her lips that she wanted his body as much as he wanted hers. He might finally have her, if he could ensure that all went according to plan.

Saddling his horse and stuffing the saddlebags with provisions had left him on edge and as he had to bear the farewells of the wildling and Jon Snow, he started to wonder if he had gravely miscalculated some part of the equation. The wolf sensed his anxiety, no doubt sniffing the perspiration that had settled onto his brow in spite of the frigid morning. Then, she had arrived atop the horse with eyes for no one but him and he knew why she had come.

He had given her every chance to say those words he wanted to hear but she was too much the lady Cersei had groomed her to be, too damn proper and reluctant and frightened of the possibilities, so he had given her one last go as he turned from her. Her hands on his arm, tugging at him and begging him to stay was all he needed to know what she wanted in that moment, even if she couldn't say what she wanted. It hadn't been his intention to kiss her, only start to undress her, but he wondered what she might taste like and hadn't been able to help himself as he brought his mouth down on hers. He had been drunk the last time and so this was the first kiss that counted and oh, how it made him hungry for more.

He could feel her startlement as he probed his tongue into her mouth and sampled every bit of her he could. She was intoxicating and his chest expanded painfully in the need to have her, claim her as his. He was prepared to take her right there against the stable wall, rip her new training clothes to shreds to get at her skin and sheath himself within her as the horses watched. The gods knew he was hard for her and _she _knew it too. She couldn't have missed it with how he had gone to such lengths to tell her with his body how much he wanted her, needed her.

He had given her everything, held nothing back. He had shoved his tongue down her throat and helped position her to give him a better hold on him and clutch at him with her entire body. When he felt her leg wrapped around him, his cock nearly released itself on her before they had begun. He had made brazen noises of arousal and grasped at her breasts, stroking the perfect mounds and longing to get at the flesh underneath. By then she was fighting against her own body to deny it what it so blatantly wanted but Sandor could feel her desire in the way her leg muscle trembled to maintain a hold on him. Her tongue was trying to resist competing with his own, her hands at his chest contracted just slightly enough that Sandor knew she was still battling temptation and it made him so godsdamned _hard _to know that he was the first man to do this to her. He pressed his throbbing shaft against her and then felt a change overcome her.

She had gone cold, actively shivering in his grasp. He heard her whimper, and not from wanting more. She had retreated into herself and she had given him nothing.

The signs had been there. He was not so stupid as to completely misinterpret them. She wanted him, even if it had taken her the near full month to admit it to herself. He had felt the heat on her, _smelled_ the readiness in her pores, would have bet that had he cared to stick his hand down her hardly broken in breeches, he would have found her sopping wet for him and he had been so prepared to have her as he felt her body reacting so favorably to him. While her mind had rejected him to save face, her body could not lie. His little bird, his she-wolf _wanted _him.

So what held her back? How had they gone from just seconds away from fucking to her blocking herself off from him and denying him every access to her? It would have kept him at her side, as she desired, or at least, would have made him return to her side after he had dealt with his brother. Nothing, not even the promise of a good fuck could have held him back from his life's mission, but if he knew she wanted him back so badly, he might have worked harder to return to her.

_Bolton, _he thought bitterly. The bastard had damaged her, perhaps beyond repair. She wanted Sandor, but Bolton's touch was still too fresh and Sandor's presence, his eagerness, had scared her. He'd gone too quickly to gratify his raging cock and in doing so, ruined his own chance. His greedy grasping at her had brought her back to that moment, _all _of those moments where Bolton had taken her without consent. The fucker would always be in her head, just as she had confessed to Sandor, and she might never be ready to lay with a man again.

Only after he had gone did he come to this realization and chastised himself for blaming her at the time of his farewell. It was no fault of hers and he had been too damn fervent, not willing to take time with her when it mattered most. He had been so careful with her leading up to that moment of passion in the stables but it wasn't enough and now he would never know what might have happened if he could have just fucking held his wits about him.

Every night sleeping with his head beneath his saddle to shield it from snow and rain had seen him grumbling as he bedded down and excusing himself before the other two were awake to go pump himself into release as he relived the parts of his and the little bird's near-fucking that had been wanted by both parties. His hand was the only form of fucking he would get for what remained of his life, but that he could wank off in memory of what he had shared with her was better than nothing. He always returned to the camp with firewood to prevent suspicion from the girl and Mormont on why he had to hurry off every morning and neither of them said a word, so he was able to leave his careful treading behind and accept that they didn't care to converse with him much.

In fact, contrary to what he had thought would be a dull journey with having to stuff moss in his ears to block out their jabbering, the journey was dull because neither of them found the need to say much and what good were traveling companions if Sandor couldn't mock and curse at them?

He found the opportunity to get in a few good verbal licks when they had had to take cover as a traveling goat farmer passed their lesser-traveled stretch of road. They could have remained in clear view and killed the man, but the girl had pulled at his reins and concealed them all in the bushes before he could commit to the deed.

_Dead rats don't squeak_, he had once told her as she begged him not to kill the hog farmer with the broken wheel spoke. And he had promised her that she would die someday soon for having a gentle heart. Yet, she was still alive and that gentle heart was still there beneath the hard outer shell of an assassin.

As the farmer passed, Sandor thought back to Brother Ray, the man whom he owed his life to and whom he had been unable to save in return. The septon was as bad as Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr in preaching on and on about piety but he had told Sandor that he believed the latter to be a man changed. Not completely, but changed enough. Changed enough to think about what killing the goat farmer would have given him. He once might have killed him for the sake of killing, out of boredom. He might have hit him over the head, eaten his goats, robbed him, but Sandor had food aplenty and Mormont carried enough gold to buy them whatever they might need from here to King's Landing. So the farmer kept his life.

When the man was well gone, the girl brought the subject of aliases to light. "Even if we dodge off the road every time we hear hooves, we're going to run into someone along the way, someone we can't outrun or hide from, and it would help to have a story at the ready in case someone asks who we are."

"Same story as before you went off to cut people's faces off—I'm your father."

"No," said the girl.

"You were a girl when you left, you're still a girl now. You don't need me to protect you, but you can't go leaving faceless corpses behind us because we don't want anyone knowing we're coming down in King's Landing, so you're going to play the part or you're going to bloody well sod off. Who am I, girl?"

"My father," said the girl through clenched teeth.

"And you'd do well to remember that. Unless you want to pass as my whore again."

"I'd rather pass you off as _my_ whore," said the girl, which brought a violent cough from Mormont that was most definitely a failed attempt to mask his laughter as a gagging fit.

"And what the fuck do you find so amusing about this?" asked Sandor.

"The girl's got a sharp tongue and a quick wit. If she traveled with you for as long as you say she did, she got most of it from you. No one would believe she was your woman, but they'd believe she was your daughter."

"No one would believe you're related to either of us, so you get to be the traveling eunich," responded Sandor, which earned him a look of reproach from the knight.

"Why do you find the need to insult me so often? You don't like me much, do you?"

"He doesn't like anyone, so I wouldn't take offense," said the girl.

Sandor didn't address how Mormont believed that he and the girl could potentially be related because of their personalities rather than looks. Being angry, dejected loners did not qualify one to belong to the same family tree as another.

Eager to play her part well if she had to play it, however, the girl gifted them names. "You're Roth," she said to Mormont, "Former master at arms to the Boltons. Where we're going, men who served the Boltons, Karstarks, or Umbers will be welcomed, but not men who serve the current lords of the North. And you," she rounded on Sandor, "Burick, kennelmaster at Deepwood Motte until it was overrun, then the two of us fled. We met Roth in Wintertown. And my name is Merydyth, daughter to Burick who takes after her father." Then, as if on inspiration, she wondered aloud to Sandor, "What sort of child were you?"

"Same as you: a brat."

That wasn't entirely true. No child was born with that meanness in them. Children's sins could only be blamed on their upbringing, the other people around them who shaped them into good people or shits or something in between. The girl had a mixture of everything but Sandor could only ever be a man who walked the middle ground. Not a good man from his past evils, not horrible like his brother. Then there were the exceptions, children who became monsters while they had the love of their parents, children born into poverty and misery who had nothing but kindness in their hearts, children who had been raised well but peaked into adulthood in a nest of snakes and did what was necessary to survive, like the little bird.

Sandor left home later than most children who sought their fortunes elsewhere but by then he had already killed his first man, his second, and his first woman. His father had already died from a hunting incident that fooled everyone but Sandor, and Gregor had taken over claim of their lands, leaving Sandor no choice but to flee lest his brother find some noble reason to silence him for good. He enlisted in the Lannister army, fought in the Lannister name, wore the Lannister colors, and brought the attention of Tywin Lannister to himself as the other soldiers spread word of the giant with the burned face following the Sacking of King's Landing.

Impressed in observation of Sandor on the battlefield, Tywin Lannister had requested a private audience with Sandor and upon meeting him, questioned him on how he came to be in the Lannister army. Sandor answered truthfully and to his immense surprise, Lord Tywin charged him with shielding his daughter, the future queen, and to be the man who would fall upon his sword for her. Sandor had been chosen, plucked from the masses not because he was yet known for his superior skills with a blade, but because his height called attention to him and when Lord Tywin had asked for his family name, if he had one, Sandor had revealed it. And so Sandor became a loyal servant of House Lannister because his brother's deeds preceded him.

"I see greatness in you, Sandor Clegane. Serve my house well, and you will find yourself a knight like your brother," Lord Tywin had said.

And immediately, Sandor had rejected him. "As it please m'lord, I'd just as soon not be knighted for my services."

"Oh?" The cold, emotionless grey eyes regarded him with interest, but also warning that he should take care to not overstep when he had been offered such an honor by one of the most powerful lords in the Seven Kingdoms.

Sandor couldn't very well tell Lord Tywin, _his_ lord, that he refused to say the vows because his brother was also a knight. He couldn't tell the man that he spat on everything a knight stood for because a man like his brother, a rapist and murderer, could be knighted when it was common knowledge what he had done in the name of House Lannister and no one gave a shit. If men like that could achieve greatness, Sandor would rather mingle with the unrecognized peasants. What then, was he supposed to say to the man who had knighted his brother, the man whose forbearer had gifted House Clegane with a name and lands?

"Your brother Gregor was recently knighted, as I am sure you are aware," said Lord Tywin.

"Aye, m'lord."

"And you have no wish to be given the same honor?"

"I have no wish to be like my brother, m'lord. The pair of us weren't overly fond of each other as boys and our relationship has soured in recent years since the death of our father. I would serve your lady daughter just as truthfully and loyally as a knight, but not _as _a knight. I want to establish myself differently than my brother has."

Lord Tywin stroked his beard in contemplation at Sandor's words and then offered him a flask of wine which Sandor took, but did not drink from, more than slightly nervous at what the lord might say.

"Your brother follows my orders without question. He answers to my beckon and serves me devotedly. If I can expect the same from you and if my daughter is pleased with your services, you need not take the knight's vows."

That had been Sandor's one and only interaction with Lord Tywin in all the years in the Lannisters' service. Delivered into duty the very next day, he met with the queen to be and followed two steps behind, one step aside at all times. He only ever stayed behind during her wedding night and the nights that a member of the Kingsguard stood vigil outside her chambers. He was especially watchful of her as she grew large with child and hid herself away from the other ladies of the court.

She rarely spoke to him, rarely acknowledged him, but on the night that she returned from the godswood to her chambers, she had fallen on the steps, lost her balance, and would have toppled down an entire two flights of stairs if Sandor had not caught her. She clutched at him, crying out as red spilled from between her legs onto the floor. Shouting for assistance, Sandor had carried her to the top landing, but knew he would not get her to her own bed before the babe was born and so he had done what any man unwise to the ways of birth would have done: he asked her what he could do.

Screaming at him, she sobbed that she did not know, that she was frightened and could not bring the child into the world. So he had tossed back her skirts, exposing her to him, and waited for the babe to come. Cursing every damn occupant of the castle down to the maids and pages, none of whom were there to save him from the unpleasant task, he had caught the little black-haired beauty of a boy and held it uncertainly until a small army of midwives appeared in their nightgowns and relieved him of his duty. He handed over the boy, carried the queen to her room, and remained outside her door with his hands still stained in blood and afterbirth.

The Kingslayer had come not soon after, seeing Sandor's hands and looking to be on the verge of killing him when Cersei called for him from within. Moments later, the queen's brother popped his head out to apologize and then slammed the door again without giving Sandor leave to go wash his hands.

Neither Sandor nor Cersei spoke of that incident, of how her sworn shield had been present for her firstborn's entrance into the world but not the boy's father, of how he had seen her in the most intimate of areas, of how he had been the first to touch the babe. And when the boy was taken by fever, Cersei would only allow Sandor to enter her chambers for weeks after, though she never said a word to him.

When she began to show once again, Sandor took extra precautions to ensure that she would not birth this one on the steps as well, advising against visiting the godswood or indeed any other place after dark, but by then she had stopped visiting the godswood altogether, perhaps given up on the gods who had let her son die.

She had gone into labor in the wee hours of the morning, prompting King Robert to gather his men and take immediate leave for what promised to be a days-long hunt. Sandor had been roused from his bed to stand guard outside her door as the midwives came to aid her through the birthing process. Not soon after she first began to moan, the Kingslayer arrived to be with his sister and Sandor stood by silently as he argued with the midwives about whether or not he would be granted entry. He won the verbal joust and let himself in and Sandor caught a glimpse of damp sheets and the clenched bare knees of the queen before the door shut and he was left to be serenaded by her squeals for the remainder of the day and well on into the night. And when dawn broke, she finally shut up, her cries replaced by the wailing of the babe, a boy.

A golden-haired boy. Sandor did not participate in the gossip that circled the Red Keep, but he did know this much about the Baratheon line: their features dominated in the gene pool. King Robert and his brothers had oil-colored hair, like their father and King Robert's son had had black hair from birth. And King Robert's sire had taken after _his _sire, long back into the Baratheon bloodline. So this boy with a head full of golden locks was not in any part Baratheon. No wonder the Kingslayer wanted to be present for the birth of his bastard son, born of incest.

But Sandor held his silence on the matter. He didn't care, so long as the boy was raised properly.

As the midwives took the boy to be fed in an adjoining chamber and allow the queen a few precious hours of rest, Cersei beckoned Sandor to her bedside and Sandor entered, feeling the Kingslayer's eyes on him.

"Your future king was born this day," said Cersei. "He will have countless enemies and will need a man capable of defending him from anyone who would seek to do him harm. I relieve you of your duties in protecting me, Sandor Clegane, and name you sworn shield to my son, Joffrey Baratheon."

He knew why she had reassigned him. It was foolish thinking, but since the fever that had claimed her first child, she had dreaded how she might lose her second, so by entrusting him into Sandor's care, she was doing all she could to protect him. Sworn shield to the future king of the Seven Kingdoms, the heir to the Iron Throne, the biggest cunt to ever sit in the damned chair, and all because no one could have predicted what he would become.

He was a happy lad, always smiling, always playing with his mother's hair and tugging experimentally at his father's beard. Sandor had carried him many times, though he never let the child touch his face. Of the three royal children, he had been the only one to not find Sandor's face terrifying, a prelude to his enjoyment of mutilation. But the child's innocence was not to last, for Sandor had caught the boy throwing a fierce tantrum at a serving girl who had refused to give him more strawberry tarts against his mother's wishes. He hit the poor girl even though she was bigger and yanked at her dress, tearing it in the process. It was one of many small, insignificant instances that could not have foretold of what was to come. It was when he tried to set the cook's cat on fire and showed no remorse for it after that Sandor had a sinking feeling about what sort of monster was being bred to rule the Seven Kingdoms. The birth of his little sister brought out more of that sadistic nature and Sandor had had to intervene when the children were squabbling over toys, for Joffrey had gone after his sister with a fork, attempting to stab her. Sandor swept the boy up and formed a cocoon with his arms, forcing him to drop the fork.

He reported the incident to the queen, but it was the king who had placed the boy over his knee and taken a switch to the boy's hindquarters. The kingdom could talk of nothing but the queen's screams after that, how she had flown at the king to protect her son and promised to leave and take her children with her if ever the king raised a hand to strike the boy again. It was punishment Sandor approved of, striking fear into the hearts of the wrong-doer to discourage them from committing the act again, but true to her word, the queen never again allowed the king to punish the prince with action and so he learned nothing, raised of the mind that no consequences could come to a royal child.

So Sandor had done the deed himself. At nine years old, the boy had tried to push his baby brother from his crib and Sandor had taken the boy by the wrist, dragged him from the room, and shoved him into the wall, letting loose on him with the promise to tell the king if ever the boy endangered the lives of his siblings again. His grip had left bruises on the delicate pale skin, but the boy lied to his mother about where he had inherited them. From that point onward, he referred to Sandor as "dog", and hated him, but Sandor didn't need to have the prince's fondness to survive. His threat had registered with the boy and the prince never again touched his siblings, not even to embrace them, and Sandor suspected that they lived as long as they did because of him, not that it did them any good in the end. All three of them died too young, but it was only the eldest whose death was a mercy both to the boy and the people he terrorized.

The two younger children had been good and kind, so unlike their elder brother and Sandor often wondered if the firstborn would have been able to tame the little terror that had come from Cersei Lannister's loins. If she had let Robert Baratheon have a hand in raising the children that were not his, so much might have happened differently. The little bird might have married that black-haired boy, Sandor would still stand as sworn shield to Cersei, and Sandor might not even now be on his way to murder his brother. And he would never have known what it was to have kissed the Lady of Winterfell.

That was a memory worth saving.

That night in the shuffle for dividing the tasks before supper, it was the girl's turn to hunt and Mormont's to fetch water from a nearby stream, leaving Sandor to gather firewood. Surprisingly, the girl returned first with a catch of two rabbits and sat down to skin them as Sandor took his flint and dagger to strike a spark to their kindling. It was difficult enough coaxing a flame forth in the dampness of the woods and what little wood he could find that wasn't soaked through was not eager to take a spark at all. Even under their cover of trees, it was so damn wet and muggy that Sandor was almost desperate for warmth and dryness, even if he had to come near fire to get it.

He sat back on his knees to watch the girl take a knife to the rabbits, removing their skin in solid, smooth, flawless strokes. No doubt she'd had much practice in skinning things with how many faces she'd collected. He didn't remember how he'd first heard about where she had been these past years since he last saw her, but when talk of the Faceless Men came up, he knew that she had to be an expert carver.

"What'd they teach you there, besides how to wear other people's faces?" he asked, curious enough to genuinely want to know.

"Not just other people's faces. Only the faces of the dead. They taught me everything I had left to learn. How to fight in the dark, how to be silent, how to lie and catch a lie. They taught me everything you'd need to know to be where you shouldn't be and still get the information you need, which brings me to something I've been meaning to ask you. What did my sister say to you just before we left?"

Sandor shrugged, returning to the task of trying to bring out a damn fire. "Same as she said during the council: that I'd better stay or I'd die. Not very persuasive the third time around—"

"Did she ask you to stay before or after you kissed her?"

Sandor's hand slipped on his flint and he set fire to the twigs which instantly spat up in his face. He threw himself back into the mud, swearing as the fire crackled happily and watching the girl, but she hadn't moved, waiting for him.

Now he was stuck in an uncomfortable predicament, having the girl in his company with her knowing that he had tried to fuck her sister. Before, the girl had no idea what had gone on in Sandor's head, didn't know that despite trying to say something that would make her stab him through the heart to end his suffering, he _did_ want to fuck her sister then. And he still wanted to, but that was something she'd missed, having spent ample time practicing archery and fucking around with the boy Gendry.

"And?" he challenged after several unbearable moments of silence on both ends.

"And nothing," she said.

"Don't do that. You have something to say, say it."

"I would have had something to say if you'd hurt her, but you didn't. I didn't know what sort of relationship you'd had before you kidnapped me; I just thought you saving her from being raped happened in passing. Didn't know that you actually meant it when you said that would have been your one happy memory, fucking her bloody."

"I wouldn't have then and I didn't, so take your little lying game to some other fire because you're not going to fucking play it here."

"That's the truth," said the girl. "You wouldn't have, but you still want to."

"I will murder you, girl."

"That's a lie."

Sandor came to his feet, kicking mud her way and stamping over to her. "Here's something that's not, girl, if I hear another word about it, I'll smack you so fucking hard over the head with a frying pan you'll sink five feet into the ground and next spring's farmers will be planting you. I fucking mean it: not one more godsdamned word."

He had not had to be this ferocious with her in a long time, but he wanted her to know that he absolutely meant it when he said he would hit her enough to hurt her. Her business was hers and his was his and they had got on well enough in the past by not nosing into the other's.

She must have detected some truth to his statement, for she let it be, still casting him sideways glares until Mormont appeared not far off on his way back with full waterskins.

"It wasn't because of you that she couldn't, just so you know," said the girl. "She told me some lies, too."

And just what in seven bloody hells did that mean? Had the girl's sister actually discussed _kissing_ him? Had the two Stark girls had a conversation about how Sandor Clegane had groped at the Lady of Winterfell and rubbed his cock against her? The thought brought a foul taste to his mouth. Somehow, the Stark girls did not coexist well in his head. His thoughts involving the Lady of Winterfell were completely different from how he had ever considered the younger one. Even when that shit Olyvar or Polliver or whatever the hells his name was had asked Sandor if the girl was his whore, it had tasted vile telling the scum the lie that yes, she was, and he had had better. He did not even want to think about the girl fucking her blacksmith, so it was no surprise that he could barely stomach the thought of people thinking that _he _wanted to fuck her.

A painful reminder of his age hit him like a punch to the gut. He had more years on the little bird than he cared to count and she was only a handful of years older than her little sister, yet he looked to the former as a woman and the latter as a girl. But they were both women in all terms: old enough to be wed, to have flowered, to bear children. What's more, he was having heated words about having kissed the girl's sister after coming to the agreement that once again she would appear as his daughter to suspicious busybodies. It fucked with his head and he didn't like those thoughts mingling about up there at all.

"You want more water after this, you're welcome to fetch it yourself," said Mormont presently, tossing Sandor and the girl their respective skins. "That stream is further than you'd think, especially on foot."

His timing could not have been more perfect or appreciated for Sandor didn't want the girl trying to read him the rest of the night and she would refrain from doing so with Mormont sure to pick up on any tension between the two. Come nightfall, however, he knew he would feel her eyes on him as he tried to sleep and he wondered if he would have to drag her off into the woods to threaten her again about keeping those eyes to herself. He couldn't very well tend to his now often present erection with her watching and she would know to what he was pleasuring himself.

The rain came in harder and they had to bring the horses in under their cover of trees before hobbling them for the night. The muddy ground not ten feet away turned into a small river and Sandor knew he would be sleeping upright. Of the three of them, Mormont found sleep quickest, probably due to his waning energy after the Great Battle, leaving Sandor and the girl to avoid each others' accusing stares until he caught her looking at him through narrowed eyes and he mouthed at her to fuck off until she turned away.

She was as bloody grating as she ever had been.

Sandor gazed up through the foliage, wondering how far into the march the army had come, for now they surely would have been on their way, leaving Winterfell with a small host of wildlings to defend it against winter itself. Somehow, the thought of the castle standing nearly empty after so many had gathered at the stronghold to fight for one cause saddened Sandor. There would not be a gathering of that kind, of Westerosi folk, wildlings, Dothraki, Unsullied, lords, ladies, knights, commoners, dragons, and direwolves ever again. So many had come from so far to unite in one cause and somehow, this impending fight for the throne seemed insignificant compared to the war against the dead.

The further south they went, the more Sandor dreaded the heat, the humidity, the people, the place, all of which he knew better than Winterfell. The northern castle was not home as the little bird had wanted it to be, but it was better than where he was headed. If he survived the encounter with his brother in enough intact pieces to function, he might just return to the North. It wasn't so bad, really, even if dreary and desolate at times.

Then he reminded himself that in a battle against the Mountain, there were no winners and that he would not be coming out of it intact in any way. While he planned to end his brother, his brother would take Sandor with him and they'd be cast into the seven hells together.

With that comforting notion, Sandor pulled his hood down over his eyes and tried to beckon sleep to come to him.


	15. Chapter 15: Failure to Act

**JORAH**

Pickings were quite slim with the rain driving any and all prey into hiding, which left them to dig for roots to fill their bellies in lieu of a regular meal. It came as no surprise that they were left with the choice to chance a visit to a roadside inn or continue on and hope some sort of food presented itself before much longer. Clegane was against the idea, but Jorah had gone now three days with nothing more than a handful of overly ripe berries from a bush not yet claimed by winter frost and a scrap of radishes and he had a sack of gold that could buy them a decent meal.

In the end, hunger won out and Jorah suggested that Clegane remain off-road with the horses while he and the girl ordered a portable meal from The Wandering Man, an inn the girl said she had visited once before on her journey north from the Twins. Though the atmosphere lent itself to the type of hearty, warming comfort Jorah had somehow come to miss with only Clegane and the girl for company, he saw that it was quite full inside and that it would be best to buy their food and move on, using the rain to their advantage while they still had it.

He set eight gold dragons before the innkeeper and asked for whatever was ready from the oven as well as anything that might be on the verge of spoiling. Moved my Jorah's generosity as well as his asking of food rather than demanding it, the innkeeper hurried into the kitchens and emerged not two minutes later with a sack of smoked meats, hardened bread heels, fresh vegetables, two flagons of wine (for which Clegane would be most pleased), and a freshly baked black currant pie, claiming that it was not much but that if Jorah cared to wait, he would personally see to it that he received his money's worth the following day when a shipment of fresh food was expected up from Highgarden. Smiling at how his initiative had paid off, Jorah thanked the man regardless and assured him the sackful was quite enough, had the girl carry the still steaming pie while he took the sack, and headed back out into the rain.

"You'd think he'd never seen gold before in his life," said the girl, protecting the pie with her cloak against the downpour.

"Probably hasn't. As busy as his inn is, he could either charge twice what his room and board is worth and get only the best-paying customers or charge hardly anything and get every customer within forty miles. He seemed kind enough that he would choose the latter, knowing that some depend on his food for what little coin they carry. I expect what I gave him could cover twenty sacks of provisions, but this will do unless our mutual friend eats it all."

"If we give him the wine first, he'll forget about the food," said the girl.

"You seem certain of that, my lady."

"I am. I traveled with him for the better part of a year and I know that if there's one thing he'll take to more than food, it's wine. And you may call me by my name, ser. I'm no lady, never was."

"As you wish, Merydyth," said Jorah with a small grin and Arya returned it.

As predicted, Clegane wanted the wine first and snatched it out of the sack before Jorah could explain how he had procured their provisions. Without bothering to find a dry patch of dirt to sit and eat, the three of them drew out various bits of food and munched hungrily on them where they stood, passing the flagon around to wash the rich flavor and saltiness down. Decent food worked wonders on the spirits and Jorah's belly thanked him for it as his mind thanked him for the good sense to pack the gold.

Still working at a hardened but nevertheless tasty heel of bread made with raisins and chestnuts, Jorah mounted Oris and turned him out onto the road when a host of red and black caught his eye just coming to a halt at the inn's hitching posts and dismounting.

Lannister soldiers.

He tried to warn Clegane and Arya to remain hidden in the trees, but Clegane had already joined him on the road, noticing what Jorah had too late. With a nearly-clean-picked chicken bone sticking out of his mouth, Clegane muttered, "Fuck me."

It was too much to hope for in that that soldiers hadn't seen them, for Clegane was hard to miss, sitting as tall as he did upon his horse. Jorah saw one soldier lean closer to another, pointing quite obviously in Jorah's direction and he urged Oris to turn the other way around, preparing to take off.

"You there, halt!" called one of the soldiers.

Jorah dug his heels into Oris's sides and the horse fell into a mad hurtle, keeping pace with both Clegane and Arya's horses as they fled the inn. Clegane blamed Jorah as they rode, "You had to stop and get food, didn't you, you dumb shit? Your stomach couldn't wait until the next fucking inn?"

"You were hungry as well," countered Jorah, looking over his shoulder to see if the soldiers were in pursuit yet. "And we won't be able to outrun them for long."

"Follow me," said Arya, veering her horse off the road and cutting into the woods. The terrain was rough here and Jorah feared that one of the mounts might twist an ankle but Arya led them to a muddy riverbed where a cluster of wild blueberry bushes concealed them from the main path. The three of them dismounted and tried to pick out a sign of the Lannister colors amidst the green and brown scenery.

"If we die today because of your fucking stomach, Mormont, nothing will protect you once I meet you in the seven hells," vowed Clegane.

"You'd be better suited trying to find out how many there are so that we might have a hope of taking them," said Jorah, wiping rainwater from his eyes. Fog was starting to settle, making the surrounding woods difficult to see through.

"I see them," said Arya suddenly, pointing, and though Jorah could not make out the shape of any horse or man, he trusted her instincts. Clegane followed her finger and nodded that he, too, could see them.

"How many?" asked Jorah, peeved that he was the only one unable to locate their pursuers but he had to remind himself that he was not a young man with at least eight years or more on Clegane and far too many on the girl.

"Too many to outrun, for sure," said Clegane.

"Then we'll make a stand here," said Arya.

"Even you aren't that good, girl."

Clegane took his hand to the hindquarters of each horse and all climbed out of the riverbed, leaving very visible tracks behind them as they hurried away. He then began to kick mud over the visible tracks and Jorah and Arya assisted him, not quite sure what he was up to but knowing better than to doubt him. As the sound of their horses' hooves died out, the sound of the dozen or so Lannister soldiers bearing down on them became noticeably louder.

"Get up that tree, girl," said Clegane, lifting Arya and all but throwing her up onto the lowest hanging branch of the great oak that overhung the river. "Go up and don't you dare come down until you can't hear hooves anymore." He scooped up a clump of mud and slapped it across his face then did the same to Jorah who took an staggering step back in confusion and with the force of the blow before realizing what Clegane meant to achieve. Dropping to his knees, Jorah plastered the muck all over his body, concealing as much of himself as he could and then flattening himself against the bank and digging his legs into the shallows.

From where he lay, he could see Arya scaling the oak, climbing further and further up into its sturdy branches until she was lost from sight. Clegane covered the last of his immense torso in muck and then hid the rest of his body in the overhanging grass of the embankment, clutching his dagger to his chest and gesturing that Jorah should do the same. Unsheathing his own dagger and concealing the metal beneath his arm, Jorah tried to slow his breathing and remain absolutely still as the soldiers closed in upon them.

This was not a good idea, far from it, but it gave them a chance. They might just live past this day, even if they had to give up their supplies in the process.

_Stupid_, thought Jorah, chastising himself. He should have waited to walk so blindly out onto the road where anyone could see him. A good meal had lowered his defenses, made him foolish, and unless he remained completely immobile, he was about to die for it.

They came loudly, splashing about in the mud and rain without troubling to be quiet about it. Careful so as not to reveal his startling blue eyes, Jorah squinted to try and make out how close they were to his and Clegane's hiding spot. The soldiers were looking for tracks, for three riders mounted and not two men covered in mud to conceal themselves, and that was the only reason Jorah believed he and Clegane were not found instantly as the soldiers formed a line to cross the muddy embankment. They had surely followed the hoof prints up to this point and were now searching for the rest of the trail, for it had gone cold in the riverbed after the care Jorah and the others had taken to conceal it.

The horses stepped over Jorah's legs with several of them coming close enough that they almost crushed his shins beneath their mighty hooves. Jorah counted them as they passed and had come to a tally of sixteen when the fifteenth's horse reared, throwing him down beside Jorah. The sixteenth went around his unlucky friend, grinning, and the fallen soldier stood up, cursing the beast and not looking to the ground around him, otherwise he would have noted how it was level with him and very much in the shape of a man. He swatted at the horse's side and it quickened its pace to avoid a lashing from its rider, leaving him behind to find his own way out.

"Fucking shite, I'll skin you alive," promised the soldier, sliding about to maintain proper footing and climb up out after his horse.

The soldier appeared to be the last and Jorah nearly breathed a sigh of relief when the man's heel came down on Jorah's hand. Looking down to see what the cause of the suddenly very sturdy ground was, the soldier locked eyes with Jorah and as the scene suddenly made sense to him, he lifted his sword arm to strike. Jorah heard Clegane mutter, "Fuck it," before rising up out of the muck to cut the soldier down.

Another soldier came to his fellow's aid, still astride his mount and preparing to spear Clegane through his unguarded back, Jorah revealed his dagger, leaping to his feet and grabbing the rider by the leg to throw him from the horse before pouncing on him. The blade opened the man's throat and Jorah drew his secondary knife, standing up to back himself against Clegane and face the soldiers who had surrounded them on foot. Their horses all stood well out of the mud to avoid a mess of broken ankles but it hardly made Jorah feel heartened at his and Clegane's odds. A quick count revealed that there were a solid fourteen soldiers remaining and if they all moved in at once, there was not a hope in seven hells for Jorah and Clegane to defend themselves.

"Tollis, is that him?" asked the knight who had originally called at them to dismount back at the inn.

"That it is, ser. The Hound, last seen with traitors in King's Landing during the negotiations between the queen and the girl with the dragons. Queen Cersei put a bounty on all of their heads and raised the bounty on those she recognized, like the Hound here. Two hundred gold dragons to the man who brings him in dead or alive, preferably alive so she can do with him what she likes."

"Take him alive if you can, then. Kill the other one."

The wind swept through the trees, setting them dancing in their sway as they sang a song of leaves whispering against each other. The sudden sound of a thousand leaves being slapped by rain and wind, the chilling fog, the eeriness of the woods all made the soldiers uneasy as if the very earth protested their commander's order. And no one thought to look up as Arya jumped from the old oak and landed on two soldiers, bringing them down with her weight and driving her needle sword into one as her knife buried itself in the eye socket of another. Her arrival was the distraction Jorah and Clegane needed and they stepped past the wall of spears and swords to cut down a soldier apiece. Clegane used one as a human shield, causing another soldier to accidentally stabbed his companion instead of Clegane who then launched the speared soldier onto another. Jorah sucked in his gut as a soldier attempted to open his belly with the swing of a halberd and when it came back around for another swing, he stepped inside of its reach, stabbing once into the groin and then into the unprotected spot just below the chest.

Three men were now battling Clegane, two of them by attempting to ride him like a wild bucking animal and the third seeming reluctant to jab his sword too close in case he stabbed one of his fellow soldiers. Clegane charged the solitary soldier who lost heart and dropped his sword, prompting the two still atop Clegane to let go and take up arms.

Arya let out a shout of fury and Jorah tore his gaze away from Clegane to see that she had been knocked over by one of the horses that had fallen into the riverbed and this fatal move had allowed four soldiers to pin her, disarm her, and begin to assault her. The skills that had made her a notorious killer and capable warrior were for naught when set upon by four fully grown men with armor and as two held down a leg and arm apiece, two more were working at her trousers. She cursed them, spitting and shrieking like a rabid animal caged and cornered.

Clegane had bashed one soldier's head upon a rock and the other two had abandoned their unfortunate comrade to join in the sport taking place just feet away as three more soldiers challenged Clegane. The man took up his fallen sword, hardly able to hold on as his hands trembled in unforgivable rage. Jorah saw him match blades with two soldiers, but never saw him deliver a death strike, for Jorah was tackled from behind, his face pressed into a puddle. The soldier, the last unaccounted for soldier meant to drown him in a couple inches of water and if Jorah allowed himself to be killed in such a manner, he deserved this fate. The thought made him angry, that he would survive the worst sort of punishment the world had to offer only to die by being suffocated in a godsdamned puddle of mud water.

He reached behind himself for the soldier's thigh and found what he had hoped to find: a knife. Withdrawing it from its sheath, he stabbed the steel into the soldier's thigh, achieving the outcome he had hoped for in getting the man to throw himself sideways in pain. Jorah spluttered and gagged as his face came free of the puddle and he seized his attacker by the armor straps, dragging him over to the exact same spot, forcing the man's head into the water, and leaning his full weight on the back of it to hold him down. Limbs kicked at him and an awful, dying, gargling noise was coming up from the puddle but Jorah held on, his muscles straining with the effort until he gradually felt the soldier grow still beneath him.

Spitting to clear the taste of sand and sullied water from his mouth, he found his knives and rose to assist Clegane in his battle and come to Arya's aid, but instead he watched the surviving four soldiers double up on horses and flee with Clegane roaring after them as he stood among his three kills. Arya was hitching up her trousers and watching Clegane call for the soldiers' blood.

"Stay here," Clegane growled at her, marching off with purpose. He seized the reins to one of the soldiers' horses, swung his leg up over it, and urged it into a full gallop.

Jorah hurried over to Arya, helping her to stand and together they examined Clegane's work. The blows he had delivered to the three soldiers who stood between him and Arya's assailants were deliberately placed to do as much damage as possible, evoking the complete wrath of their executioner. The three bodies scattered where Arya had lain had nearly as much blood spilling from their mortal wounds as there had been on the entire battlefield in the aftermath of Winterfell's fight against the dead.

Aware of how sensitively he should proceed, given what had nearly occurred, Jorah asked carefully, "Are you hurt?"

"Not as much as those soldiers will be when he catches up to them," she responded with a hint of—pride? The relationship that existed between she and Clegane was one of some deep-rooted respect and she knew that he would exact vengeance on the men who would have done her harm. "Come on."

They did not have to follow Clegane's tracks long, expecting to find him still locked in battle or standing over his kills and searching their belongings for wine.

What they found was absolute carnage. Unlike with the men back at the river, Clegane had meant to open wounds that would ensure the most blood loss, the most pain for even now, one of the four men was sobbing for his mother as he drowned in his own blood. And Clegane was still going at it, hacking another man's stomach to shreds and ripping handfuls of guts out every time he withdrew the cleaver he had acquired, most likely from his horse's saddlebags. Great splashes of blood spat out at him, painting his muddy face red and more of it dripped like rain from the ends of his hair.

Arya watched him, fixated in what Jorah recognized as guilt and sadness, not pride, but she was also horrified at what she bore witness to and it was Jorah's duty to spare her any more of it. She could not bring Clegane to stop his savage killing spree when the latter was doing it for her and even if she tried, she was not strong enough to hold him back, so Jorah would have to put himself in the line of fire to bring some sense of humanity back into the fold. He went to Clegane, slipping on all manner of body parts and gushing blood as he came to the man's side and caught his arm before he could take another swing.

"That's enough, they're dead."

"Not fucking dead enough," snarled Clegane, wrenching his arm free and going at it again.

"They're _dead_, dammit, Clegane!" shouted Jorah, snatching back at Clegane's arm in an attempt to wrestle him away but Clegane rose to his full height and grabbed Jorah by his tunic. Jorah took an equal handful of Clegane's cloak and shook him, or what little bit of him he could move in a one-handed grip. "That's enough. Come to your senses, man." But a quick look beyond the battle-ravaged face of the man before him revealed that Clegane had taken leave of his senses back at the riverbank and that he was in a state of bloodwrath from which Jorah could not rouse him. One wrong move and Clegane might turn the cleaver upon Jorah, consumed by a rage that Jorah had never seen in a man before.

"Steady," said Jorah carefully.

In small pieces, Clegane came back into himself, the fire of rage dousing itself behind his eyes. His grip on Jorah went lax and in turn, Jorah released him. Clegane dropped his weapon and stood among his kills, heaving a great lungful of breath.

"You didn't just kill them," said Arya in a small voice as she stepped over a soldier who had been ripped open from chest to groin in a clean stroke that had made his last moments immeasurably painful, "You massacred them."

"Are you complaining about it?" asked Clegane.

"That isn't the work of a man defending his companion," said Jorah. "You meant to make these men suffer. You wanted them to die in pain."

"And they did," said Clegane, covering one fist with another to stop what Jorah spotted as uncontrollable trembling. Only then did Jorah see that he had not escaped the carnage unscathed, for he had an open would across his arm.

"You'll need to wash that out," said Jorah, nodding at the wound. "In fact," he glanced over himself and Clegane, the latter of whom was absolutely unrecognizable with several layers of muck and blood on him, "We both would benefit from a wash."

They found their horses not far on down the way with saddlebags and supplies still intact and then added anything of value they could scavenge off of the soldiers' horses before turning the beasts loose. They piled the bodies by the riverbed and set them adrift one by one to be carried out to sea or at the very least, end up far from the inn where there had been witnesses to see who might have killed them and start a manhunt. After sinking or burying the telltale armor and supplies that would bring them nothing but trouble if they collected them, Jorah and Clegane stripped down to their breeches despite the ceaseless rain and waded out into the river to waist height.

Jorah splashed water on himself to scrub off the muck from both his body and clothes, wringing his tunic out several times and dumping handfuls of water on his head until he could no longer see brown water running off of himself. Clegane submerged his entire head and ran his fingers through the mess of it, for he had much more to clear out. Red ran from him, bypassing Jorah on its way downriver. When Clegane pulled his head from the water, it clung to his scalp in a sopping wet tangle, revealing a scar along his left shoulder blade. By the looks of the divots, he had been bitten by a man, and deeply. The irony that the Hound had been _bitten_ by a man…

Arya called Clegane back closer to shore so she could set to sewing up his wound and he begrudgingly waded toward her, plopping himself down on a boulder in the shallows. He looked away as she worked, unable to do anything but sit still. She, however, did not need to remain so and asked a question of Jorah with her eyes still on Clegane. "What happened to you, Ser Jorah?" She nodded at Jorah's torso, encrusted in scars of several layers of skin trying to mend itself.

"Greyscale," answered Jorah. "Your brother's friend, Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch managed to find a cure, but the scarring was inevitable."

"How did you contract it?"

"By traveling through Old Valyria where the stone men reside," said Jorah. "I was returning to the queen's service after being absent for a time and was ambushed. This was the quick work of a mere handful of months."

"Don't ever take your shirt off if you're with a woman, then," suggested Clegane, wincing as Arya pulled at the thread in his skin. "They don't like many scars on their men."

Jorah said nothing. He had not considered what Daenerys might think of his scarring, for she had not asked to see it since he returned to her. But Jorah trusted Clegane to know what he was talking about when he claimed that women were not overly fond of marred skin and the thought saddened him somewhat. How difficult and unfulfilling of a life Clegane must have led to have no woman want him and no whore willing to accept his coin, however generous, simply because he was not whole. No wonder the man was so bitter.

With nowhere to dry their clothes in the tidal waves of rain still washing down on them, Jorah and Clegane had no choice but to don them again. Arya built a fire by which they tried to warm themselves, toasting bits of bread and eating their meat cold, for they were not patient enough to wait to reheat them. Nothing more was said of the butchery by Clegane's hands, but Jorah knew it to be on both Clegane's mind and Arya's, though to her credit, she tried to make them all forget it momentarily in revealing that she had saved the pie by covering the crust with a handkerchief and placing it in one of her empty saddlebags. It was a gooey, sticky, delicious mess but they enjoyed it, leaving none to spare.

Night had fallen by then and though Jorah was considerably warmer with the presence of a fire, he still had on damp clothes. He took a saddle blanket and wrapped it about himself, wishing for the warmth of a direwolf. If there was one thing he missed about Winterfell, it was Ghost and how he had always come to sleep atop Jorah's cot on those nights where it seemed impossible to find sleep. The wolf's gentle breathing had been a soothing rhythm to listen to and gradually, he had been able to drift off, comforted by the beast that knew how troubled he was...

Jorah froze as he listened to the same soft breathing beside him. He sat up, feeling three coverlets fall off of his shoulders. It was well on into the night and the fire still crackled by his feet, but somehow, he had fallen into a fitful sleep and Arya had snuggled up to him to share her bedding and her body heat to prevent him from freezing. The third blanket had come from Clegane who was still sitting near but not too near the fire in his own sodden clothes and the second of the two blankets he had packed.

Upon seeing Jorah awake, Clegane shook his head. "I could hear your teeth chattering from where I went to take a piss."

It was an odd and crude way of explaining why he had given Jorah half of his bedding, but Jorah was grateful for it. On the other hand, he was not sure how he felt with Arya cozied up to him as if they knew each other well. It was different beyond the Wall when he, Clegane, Jon Snow, and the others had clumped in together for warmth, for it was pack in together like sardines in a bowl or freeze to death. Here, with a young woman—a girl—he felt as if he were committing some sort of unsavory deed.

"If you want me to move, tell me," said Arya with her eyes still closed. He must have woken her when he sat up, but she had feigned sleep to see if he would return to the blankets or sit and contemplate. "The pack huddles for warmth to protect each other from the cold, and you were cold."

It was a bold and selfless move on her part, but she had to know how uncomfortable it made him.

"I am grateful for your consideration but I can take watch now—"

"I'm on watch and I don't want company," said Clegane shortly. "Go back to sleep, Mormont."

Arya turned her body away from him but remained beneath the blankets, offering him her body heat still while trying to make something decent of the situation. Defeated, tired, and not willing to earn himself a knock to the head for arguing with Clegane, Jorah lay back down, hugging his knees to his chest and pulling his cloak tighter about himself. Sleep evaded him this time for much longer than he had hoped and when he was starting to grow restless with it, he felt an arm drape over him and let out a sigh.

She was definitely a Stark, stubborn, protective, and kind-hearted.

With three blankets, the fire, and the girl's body heat, he should have easily felt warmth spreading to his extremities but he only shivered harder, fearing that Arya might wake from his insistent trembling. His years in the dry desert wastelands of Essos had shattered his immunity to cold, driving the resistance to it from his body so that he made up a poor excuse of a Northern son, a son of Bear Island among the Bay of Ice.

The weight of a fourth coverlet landed on him and he popped one eye open to see Clegane returning to the fire with nothing to block out the cold but his cloak. Again, Jorah felt an unexplainable ache in his chest for the man, wishing better times and happiness upon him, but with where they were bound, that fate was not to be and Clegane had accepted it long ago.

/ /

**SANDOR**

_You didn't just kill them; you massacred them._

Bloodlust, irrevocable rage, symptoms of a diseased man Sandor had thought long-dead. He had not engaged in such brutal and barefaced murder since he happened upon part of the troupe that savaged Brother Ray's settlement. That had been the last time he had killed men for his own purpose and greed (for the Northern traitors he dispatched were dealt with in accordance to the situation, swiftly to clear the way for more). There was a particular feeling of elation in killing men, seeing them suffering, and Sandor had missed that. He relished it when he set upon the men who would have raped the girl and the last one had begged, offered him gold, offered everything, so Sandor had chosen to make his death the bloodiest.

Four men, however, were not enough to satisfy him. He needed more, and if he hadn't recognized Mormont as an ally in that moment when the man sought to stop him, he would have had a fifth victim. Mormont had come to stop him because the girl was horrified at what he had done—for her. He had killed for her before, but it had been simply to kill and prevent those men from killing her and she had watched him do it fearlessly but this, this demonstration of savagery on her behalf, in retribution for what had almost been done to her, it frightened her.

Mormont was the first to bed down and despite the wildling Tormund's claim that the old bear was silent in his sleep, he certainly wasn't still. His legs knocked together with chills and his arms jerked around uncontrollably. No snoring came from his throat, but his teeth made such a clatter like he was seeking to play them as an instrument and Sandor had cast one of his two covers over Mormont if only to muffle the sound. Then the girl spread her bedroll beside Mormont and pressed herself against him, holding tightly with a concentrated look as if she could will him to stop shivering. Eventually, the shivering subsided and Sandor was able to sit in peace with thoughts of murder in his head.

A kind heart still. The girl had the Tully goodness in her even if she had bared her Stark fangs. It was yet possible for a person to harbor a soft spot for the innocent and still make it in the world; Septon Ray had shown him as much and it was true, for Sandor was still alive, wasn't he?

What she had told Mormont though, that the pack huddled for warmth, that the pack looked out for their own had registered deeply with Sandor. Her pack consisted of her family…and Mormont? They were both Northerners, something that left Sandor feeling strangely singled out, but she had catered to Mormont's needs without question as she would for family without hardly knowing the man.

It was best not to think of such things that might strengthen the small measure of attachment he felt to her. Best to let her go now before he had to say his goodbyes.

That did not, however, deter him from checking on her throughout the night. He felt reassured that she was so close to Mormont where he could keep an eye on her but he was still resigned to the fact that he would have to keep watch into the new day in case the innkeeper had sent more Lannister soldiers their way in search of their fellows, for their exit from the inn grounds had surely not gone unnoticed. Several times Sandor got up under the pretense of taking a piss just to make a round about the camp and check the woods for more soldiers, listen for breaking twigs and squelching mud.

He knew he would not be able to last the full night, though and found himself nodding off too close to the fire. Trusting that the horses would alert him to any intruders to their camp, he wrapped himself in his cloak, now regretting having given Mormont both of his blankets. When sleep did find him, his dreams were not kind to him.

He hid under a great canopy bed, unsure of how he had ended up there. He heard arguing, the voices of his siblings approaching and knew he should scuttle off before Gregor found him eavesdropping but the door flew open before he could move. Gregor was shouting at their sister though the words blurred in Sandor's ears. His brother was already twice Elinor's size and nearly twice her age, a monster of a young man against Elinor's tiny form. He struck out at her, leaving an angry welt across her face but ever the gentle hand, she did not fly at him in return.

Her weakness angered Gregor and he hit her again before throwing her to the ground and stomping on her leg as she tried to crawl away.

Sandor knew he should run now, while Gregor's attention was elsewise occupied. He should run to their father for help and he might even draw Gregor's attention away from Elinor in the process so she could get away. Sandor was fast and Gregor was a great lumbering dunce. The advantage was Sandor's, but he didn't move, closing his hands over his mouth to stifle his screams of terror as Gregor smacked Elinor's head against the floor to daze her and then threw her skirts up to her waist, revealing her bare skin underneath.

The scene before him did not process in Sandor's mind. He could not understand what Gregor was doing to their sister or why she was screaming, why she appeared to be in so much pain. She was loud enough that someone must surely be coming, someone would appear at any moment who could pull Gregor away from her…

Elinor's head dropped to the side and from her vantage point, she could see Sandor watching, not understanding, and through her sobs, she pleaded with Gregor to not hurt him. Gregor's eyes found Sandor and he promised to do worse to Sandor once he was done here.

No one was coming. Sandor was the only one who knew.

With his sister's dying screams in his ears, he ran, leaving her behind and hearing Gregor giving pursuit. His feet pounded up the tower steps to his father's chambers and Gregor was not far behind. Pushing against the heavy snakewood door, he found himself kicking up a basket of overturned vegetables. He stood in the valley of Brother Ray's camp, witness and sole survivor to the massacre that had taken place here.

He stepped over children, a girl with an axe buried in her skull, a boy with four arrows in his neck. It reminded him of so much that he had already seen, everything he had hoped to leave behind in the life that had died when he nearly did, and it left him completely at a loss as he looked about him in hopelessness. Men, women, and children who had been breathing, laughing, living just minutes prior. And Ray, dangling from what would have been a beautiful if somewhat quaint sept. His only friend, the only man to know his past and not judge him for it.

He had torn through all but three of the murderers, hanged two others, and not felt one bit better about it in the aftermath because those people were still dead, his friend was still dead, and the life of peace he had hoped for was not to be as he reverted to his old ways. There was no victory or justice in killing those men when Sandor's thoughts kept returning to the little girl, no older than six, dead in her father's arms as he had attempted to shield her. As he watched Lem Lemoncloak swing and reached to remove the bastard's boots, he found that he could not extend his arms any further, for he was chained opposite a lord's bed, watching Ramsay Bolton rip the spine of the little bird's wedding dress open to expose her.

Bolton forced her down and she clutched at the furs adorning the bedspread as Bolton tore apart what remained of the dress and undid the many clasps and pins that held her hair up. A woman's figure, a child's fear, evident in her shivering in an attempt to control herself as Bolton tossed aside the remnants of the dress to make room for himself. He unbuckled and dropped his britches and climbed on top of her, holding onto the back of her neck to prevent her from rising. He entered her in one vicious thrust that brought out a terrible squeal from her and a gasp of pain. Her fingers scrabbled at the bedspread, trying to find purchase with which she could ride out the moments but with every one of Bolton's re-entries, her cries grew louder.

Sandor pulled at the shackles that bound him across from her, out of reach, of no help, until he bled at the wrists, wanting to take up his sword and behead the Bolton fucker, but unable to find it as he moved with the speed of wading through molasses. He wanted to incite the wrath of the gods, any who might be listening and seeing what was happening to this poor girl, but none came to his calling, none ever did. Instead he watched the shadowed figures of Joffrey Baratheon, Meryn Trant, Petyr Baelish, and the three would-be rapists of Flea Bottom crowd around the lord's bed to watch the little bird writhe and sob.

The little bird was screaming now, begging Bolton to stop but he seemed to take pleasure in her pain and went at her even harder and Sandor could barely stand to watch. He'd seen many women and girls raped and done what he could for some of them, but had cowered away from many others because it would have been his death to interfere. But this woman on Bolton's bed was _his_. He'd claimed her as such, even if she would never take him in return. His kiss had left a mark on her that warned any man who would dare harm her that justice would come for them. He had no cause to cower or run for help when he could enact justice in his own way and she needed him to do that now. If he had claim to her, if she was truly his, he would stop this.

But the men watching her now were already dead and Sandor could do nothing to hurt them as he so wanted. They were all dead and the damage had been done with no satisfaction to be had. Nothing could ever quench the thirst born of Sandor's throat in the need to punish these men. He would have to wait to enter the seven hells where the men would be waiting for him.

The little bird cried for him, called his name as Bolton's nails cut into her shoulder blade and then Bolton was gone, the room was gone, and Sandor had his arms around her, grinding his torso against hers as he kissed her in the stables of Winterfell. He kneaded his fingers into her breasts and rubbed his arousal into her, making sure that she would know what his intentions were. Pulling back and breaking the kiss, he fumbled at her closely fitted trousers until they dropped around her ankles

"No, Sandor, stop," she said suddenly, pushing at him, but he paid her no heed, tearing her tunic apart at the breasts to reveal her and pinching her hard enough to bruise. Pinning her arms above her head, he settled between her legs and worked at his breeches to release himself. She hollered at him but he slapped a hand over her mouth and spread her wide with his thighs, ripping her smallclothes aside. She wept and then screamed as he pushed into her, ramming her hard and deep into the mud. Reflected back in her eyes was a war-torn face with black and grey stubble, a shaved head, and red eyes. He heard a grunt of pleasure from his throat with a voice that was not his.

"Say my name," he commanded but she shook her head, beating her fists at him in vain. "Say it, you little bitch." He bit into the flesh along her neck and she squealed, a sound he reveled in. He pounded her as fiercely as he could, wanting to see her bleed, see her hurt. "Say my fucking name, you whore."

"Gregor," she sobbed.

His hands found her throat and squeezed…

Sandor sat up boltright, reaching for his dagger as his other hand closed around cloth and brought his would-be attacker within striking range.

"Steady, Clegane!"

Mormont had his hands thrown up in surrender, desperately calling out to Sandor to come properly awake. "It's just me," said the knight.

The rain had stopped, though the sky remained overcast, the air moist. Mormont had started a fire where two fish and some of the bacon from the innkeeper were frying.

The setting was not registering in Sandor's head. He had been in his own castle, in Brother Ray's camp, in Winterfell, traveled back and forth across Westeros—all in his dreams, but his body felt as if it had taken the journey itself.

He released Mormont but the man continued watching him with concern until Sandor stood up to take a real piss, having actually held it throughout the night. When he returned to the half log that acted as his seat, Mormont had set a serving of breakfast out for him and Sandor tucked in ravenously despite the hollow feeling in his stomach.

He had _raped _her. With his brother's face, his brother's name, and his own mind, he had raped her in his dreams. What the fuck sort of message did that send? What did it mean? He never would have, he couldn't. He had stopped himself when he felt her uneasiness and even though he had so _wanted_ to take her, he would have her willing or not at all. Taking her without her consent would have made him exactly like his brother and Sandor had done everything within his power to avoid becoming that sort of man. His dedication to doing what she wanted was what made him different from the monster he was set upon killing, if not better.

Had he been a man to share his innermost thoughts, he would gladly have done so to Beric Dondarrion or even bloody Thoros of Myr if it meant being able to make sense of these disturbing images. He had seen visions of his past, his inability to save the innocent and he understood why, but he had never raped the little bird. He would gladly have fucked her if she had let him go that far, but she hadn't, so he didn't and he definitely hadn't raped her and neither had his brother, so why in the ever-living fuck did that show up in his nightmares?

On second thought, perhaps it was a fortunate thing that neither Dondarrion nor Thoros were here to offer their insight, for the last thing he needed was for them to tell him that the fucking Lord of Light had given him the dreams as a way of speaking to him. No, he had dreamt of those awful things because he had been drained by battle, his mind left unguarded and open to fantastical attack. He knew that he would never harm his little bird and no fucking dreams could convince him otherwise. They were a manifestation of his fears, what had been and what could be, but not what _were_.

Unlike in his dreams, he had been able to _do _something to those Lannister soldiers from yesterday, _punish _them for what they had tried to do to the girl. His sister, the villagers, and the little bird in the bed of Ramsay Bolton had all been his shortcomings so why did they come back to haunt him when he had finally righted the injustice of it in defending the girl? She remained intact thanks to him; did that not merit good dreams instead of reminders of the consequences of failure? Of dire predictions of what might happen if he failed to kill his brother?

"You look awful," said the girl, tossing the half-empty wineskin at him to jerk him jarringly from his thoughts.

From where the horse had fallen against her, she had a matching lump over her eye to be an equal set from the one she had earned in the Great Battle.

"So do you," Sandor responded, taking a swig and not liking the taste. That put him in a very foul mood indeed, for if his dreams had ruined the taste of wine for him, how then was he supposed to fucking cope?

"Did you think I couldn't hear you lumbering around every five minutes last night?" asked the girl. "You were checking to make sure I was still here and that the soldiers weren't. And I don't need you watching over me. I didn't need you yesterday either."

"Then I should've let them rape you like they intended," said Sandor viciously. Arrogant ass of a girl, if she was going to be ungrateful, he could be cruel in return.

"They wouldn't have gotten that far—"

"Oh, shut up, you prideful child," he barked, snatching at her wrist. "I don't care if you're the water dancer you always wanted to be or the first sword of Braavos or a godsdamned Faceless Man; you're a fucking girl, and they would have raped you no matter how well you can fight. You might've killed them after, but they would have fucked you into the mud if I hadn't gotten there first. I don't want your gratitude, but don't be stupid about it."

"I'm supposed to be glad that you made sport of killing them like your brother did? That you painted the ground red like it was a canvas?"

Sandor's grip tightened to where he knew he was hurting her, but his anger was not entirely unchecked. "Don't—fucking—compare—me—to—my—brother," he spat, squeezing harder with every word. "Don't you fucking _dare_, girl." He pulled her closer and grabbed both of her shoulders to deliver a shake that would be sure to thoroughly send the message. "Do you understand me?"

"Let go of me now," she said uncertainly.

He did, digging his nails into his palms, disgusted with himself. As with her sister, he had gone too far, frightened her, perhaps to the point of his act being unforgivable.

"Is that what you think I am, girl?" he asked. "You think I'm like my brother, that I enjoy raping little girls and crushing men's skulls?"

"I know you don't—or you didn't. But what you did yesterday wasn't you. I've never seen you lose control like that. You went half-mad with it. You could have killed Ser Jorah because you weren't aware of yourself anymore and when you can't tell the difference between killing a man and slaughtering one, when you can't tell the difference between your enemies and your own people, _that's _when you're the same as your brother."

It stung, hearing it from her own mouth that she likened him to his brother because he could not put a leash on his rage, even on her behalf. He could kill men all he liked, but the moment he let that turn to barbarism, he was leaving the part of himself behind that was solely Sandor Clegane. The girl understood that of him better than he did himself, for she fought the same battles within herself.

She rubbed at her wrist and he took it in his hand, holding the small, bruised skin against his large palm. His thumb ran over it as if his touch could help wash the bruises away.

"My brother would have broken it," he said flatly. "And I forget that despite being a woman and a warrior, you're still small in stature." _Small enough to break easily, like your sister._

It was the only apology he could muster but as to whether or not she would accept it, he didn't know. Not too quickly, she took her wrist back and left him to saddle her horse.

He kicked dirt viciously over the fire to douse it and then set about to gathering up his bedding as Mormont did the same nearby.

"For a man who hates people, you nearly work yourself to death playing the role of her father, only I don't believe it's just a role with you," said Mormont in a low voice that would not carry to the girl.

"If you don't shut up about it, I'll make your role as the traveling eunich a reality," Sandor promised.

"I'm a master-at-arms."

"You can still be a master-at-arms with no cock."

"You should try being somewhat tolerable and tolerant of other people, Clegane. You might find that you actually enjoy the company of some."

Sandor swiped his blankets back from Mormont with a violent tug. "You might find that you won't get both of your arms broken if you shut the fuck up."

"If you mean to actually do it, you're welcome to do it," challenged Mormont, waiting for Sandor's move.

He had called Sandor's bluff, for Sandor had no such intention of breaking anything except perhaps Mormont's nose but to save face, he took Mormont's neatly packed bedroll and dropped it in the mud before doing up the fastenings on his own and carrying it to his horse. There was no guilt to be had in doing it; he had suffered through the chilly night by giving his blankets to Mormont, so a little mud on the knight's bedding was nothing.

Mormont's shoulders dropped in a sigh and he knelt down to wipe the muck away, which was the part that _did _make Sandor experience a small measure of guilt. The man meant well, had no fight with Sandor, and was trying to make the best of a situation he was ordered into at the behest of the queen he loved. He did not ask for Sandor as a traveling companion and had had to deal with Sandor's unpleasantness. To be fair, Sandor often found that men like Mormont did not last long with all of those good intentions, but he had not fought in battles with those men like he had with Mormont, and the man at the very least deserved some respect.

Sandor led Mormont's stallion over to him, handing over the reins. "You'll get along a lot better if you keep your mouth shut," he said stoutly, and mounted up.


	16. Chapter 16: Abandoned and Unwanted

**SANSA**

Ghost howled into the night, a terribly forsaken sound of a lone wolf separated from his pack, only most of Ghost's pack had gone south already. Those few nights following the Hound and Ser Jorah's departure had been the worst, for Ghost had gone to the godswood and cried for them in his loneliness. His cries made it impossible for Sansa to sleep for the same reasons until she called for Bronn to take her out to meet the wolf. She sat with him, huddled on a collection of blankets and furs until he fell asleep with his head in her lap. Ghost snapped at Bronn if the sellsword attempted to move her inside during the night, so Bronn began to bring his bedding outside as well and curl up some ten feet away, covered in frost by morning.

The wolf was not the only one to watch the gates expectantly as if anticipating that he would see his pack returning, for Sansa caught herself glancing at it more often than not until she was loaded into the back of a carriage, ready to be on the march at long last. Jon made it clear that she was not to ride horseback unless absolutely necessary to preserve her leg and Bronn had made the comment that she would need her leg for more important things than sitting atop a horse, so she allowed herself to be seen in the covered carriage, near the end of the line with Bronn riding alongside her and Podrick and Ser Jaime not far behind bringing up the rearguard.

Jon had tried to get the wildlings to lock Ghost in the godswood until after their departure, but the wolf was not to be left behind and had broken loose, running straight out onto the moors and waiting for Sansa to ride by to tread alongside her. The south was no place for a direwolf; Lady and Nymeria were proof of that, but Ghost had outlived all but one of his siblings and fought against the dead, so his luck ran long and plentiful. Still, Jon did not let him near the vanguard, having nearly lost him in an offensive charge before, so Ghost hunted by day and returned to Sansa's carriage by night, often sharing watch with Bronn. He would still howl when he was feeling particularly forlorn and on those nights Sansa sat up with him, having no desire to sleep after sitting all day with nothing to do.

With her back to the carriage wheels and watching the fire by her feet, Sansa stroked Ghost's head, remembering the nights she spent with Lady at the foot of her bed as they traveled the Kingsroad in the presence of King Robert's royal procession. She had left Winterfell behind her with the promise of beautiful dresses, the admiration of all who beheld her beauty, and a courtship with the prince. Her mother, her brothers, her home, were all forgotten in favor of a horrible boy who would become king. Her mind had been on winning Joffrey's affections and not her own brother, lying as if dead in his bed, perhaps never to wake again.

There were not enough numbers in existence to count how many times she had cursed at herself for her childish stupidity. She would give anything to have the chance to take back her words and ask her father if she might remain instead at Winterfell to savor the time she had left with her mother and brothers, her people, her home.

Saying farewell to Bran was more difficult this time around because he was awake to see her off unlike his comatose state from last time. But more than that, Sansa did not like leaving him behind in his vulnerable position with a handful of Stark guards and wildlings to watch over him (not that she didn't trust the wildlings, but if Cersei sent a force to take Winterfell or if the battle went ill and no one returned, Bran's protectors would not be able to do so for long).

She went to his room the evening before her departure to bid him farewell for the time being and though he was her brother, she did not like being alone with him, not after he had become…whatever he was now.

Sitting in the chair opposite him at the hearth, she wondered what she could say to him that he hadn't already foreseen, what words she could offer him that would hold any consequence. He was a man grown now, but his burden had made him timeless and so it was no longer like speaking to a little brother who could be comforted by his sister's gestures of affection.

"Bran—"

"It won't be like last time," he said, cutting off her unspoken emotional parting. "However things might change, nothing will happen as it did before when we lost everything. If we lose again, it will be our lives and then we will have nothing to worry about."

That was an oddly and morbidly optimistic way of looking at things.

"But can't you see if we win?' asked Sansa. "You saw that Arya would need the Valyrian dagger."

"I saw that she would need it, but not for what purpose," corrected Bran. "I also saw her dying with that dagger in hand."

"Did you see me dying in the crypts?"

"Yes. I saw you dying down there and on the wall and in your bedroom. I saw Jon falling from his dragon's back and being slaughtered by the Night King only to rise again as a wight. I saw my own death. I saw Arya's and Daenerys's and the Hound's."

"In King's Landing?" she said quickly.

"Everywhere. I have seen all of you die in multiple locations."

"But how many times did you see any of us die in King's Landing?"

"I saw many futures, some in which he died, some in which he lived," said Bran plainly and unabashed, for he knew for whom she was truly concerned. "I saw him die at the Battle of the Blackwater, I saw him live and take you with him. I saw him die just outside our gates, cut down by the Night King himself, I saw him live to battle alongside Jon in the siege of King's Landing. I've seen him kill his brother and die as the Kingsguard rushed him and buried ten spears in him. I've seen his head, Jorah Mormont's, and Arya's mounted on spikes to greet you when you arrive in King's Landing. I've seen him, Jorah Mormont, and Arya holding Cersei's head to greet you when you arrive in King's Landing. Nothing is certain, Sansa, and I cannot make the future or predict it. I only see every possible outcome and some would make you happy while others would destroy you. I can sit here and tell you each and every one of them, but in the end, nothing you do from here to the capital will change what is happening to him there. You'll both have to decide for yourselves, as we all do."

Frustrated, horrified, and burdened that Bran had seen one outcome that would be _the_ outcome as well as all the rest in which she and the Hound died excruciating deaths or were broken beyond repair, Sansa did not feel any better at all.

"I can tell you one thing that makes an appearance in more of these visions than it doesn't—fire. I see red fire, green fire, blue fire. I see you burning and I see him burning beside you."

_Dragonfire. He sees us burning as the dragons set the city aflame. He sees the dragons laying waste to King's Landing and us along with it._

"But fire is not always death. Against the dead, it was life. It has many meanings. And death itself does not always mean an exit from this world. Take me, for instance. A part of me died north of the Wall, but I still draw breath, even if weighted by the load I now carry."

Sansa urged herself to be truthful with her little brother now that this might be the last time. "I love you, Bran. For what little time we had together as children, I should have been better to you. You're my little brother and the only one I have left. The _only_ brother I have left."

"Jon told you."

Yes, Jon told her. He had taken her aside after her training, applauding her on her desire to learn as he snuck up on her and Bronn engaging in fake combat. Requesting that Bronn take his leave and double check the perimeter on the way out, Jon had revealed a horrible truth to Sansa and one that she did not believe completely until just now with Bran voicing it aloud to her.

Jon was no son of Eddard Stark and some southern wench. He was the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, birthed in secret, raised as a lie to protect him, true heir to the throne with more claim than Daenerys, and in no way Sansa's brother. She did not ask him how he had come to know this; the details of _how_ were not important. She only needed to know why he was choosing to tell her now and his reasoning had been that she deserved the truth but she would much rather have remained in the dark about it in blissful obliviousness than be exposed to it as if she were expected to do something about it.

"Whether he means to use his lineage to his advantage or not, that makes him not only King in the North, but King of the Seven Kingdoms and to be that, he cannot solely be a Stark. He has dragon's blood in him, so he cannot be my brother for true."

"We're all blood of something and another. The Stark children were all wolves mixed with trout. You became part lion because you allowed yourself to be when you took Tyrion as your husband. You never were the flayed man because you denied Ramsay. You will take on the blood of your husband, whoever he is. You might marry again, if you live. I've seen those futures as well. Wed to a Glover, a Royce, a Hornwood…"

The thought filled her with both hope and dread. He had seen her married, but was it of her own choosing or because someone ordered her, someone like Daenerys? Jon would never command that of her and she could not see herself willingly taking any man to her bed, for she would indeed be the one doing the taking, determined that no man would ever claim her as property for her lands and titles again.

"Jon may not have our father's blood," continued Bran, leaving Sansa no more time to consider potential future suitors. "But he is part Stark and you should not be so particular with your brothers, for he is now more your brother than I am. He loves you as I no longer can."

She had wiped furiously at her eyes as he said these words, confirmed with an emotionless finality that Brandon Stark was dead and the body that remained had his face, his voice, and nothing else.

If she had no brothers now, what _did_ she have? She marched south with two Targaryens and left behind a Three-Eyed Raven. Her only family now was Arya, but she was a woman that Sansa did not recognize and she was more than Sansa could ever be. What did Sansa have now? What worldly possession did she have to obtain when she was so bitterly alone?

"The people we know as children don't always remain in our lives as we would like them to," said Bran wisely. "You and I are living proof of that. Ser Rodrik, Farlen, Maester Luwin, Jory, Old Nan, Jeyne, all people we believed as children that we would know well into adulthood. Our own family are strangers to one another, bonded only by the blood we share and the titles we gave each other. You and I are blood and so we are loyal to each other, but we don't know each other as we knew each other when we were children. We made new friends on our journeys and oftentimes, those people are far dearer to us than the ones we grew up with. I don't feel those emotions anymore, but you still can, so you don't need to be afraid of being alone."

Sansa knew who he meant, for it could be no one else. She had two friends in this world and the one Bran referred to was not four feet high.

"You don't ever have to tell me anything about what has happened to you, Sansa. I see it all. From the moment it comes into being, it is a memory of the past and therefore, I can see it. What lies hidden is only your feelings and thoughts, though with you being my sister, I can read those as well."

She waited for him to say it, too embarrassed to admit it herself.

"He stopped as soon as he felt you no longer responding to him. That should tell you what sort of man he is and what sort of man he would be if you had let things go further than they did. I don't know why you keep asking yourself the question when you know the answer."

"I don't know what I want."

"You always thought you did and told Mother and Father what you wanted when you wanted it. You wanted a horse, Weymar Royce, a new gown, Joffrey Baratheon, and you told them outright that you wanted those things. But you're hesitant now, which shows how you've grown and come to consider what you truly want. I think this _is_ what you want."

"You don't know me. You said so yourself. You don't know me, not anymore."

"I don't have to know you to see how many futures have him in them. But the decision is yours and he'll respect whatever that is, if you both live. There is no future that I see where if he lives, he doesn't come back to you to be whatever you want him to be. Sworn shield, friend, something less, something more."

_No future where if he lives, he doesn't come back._ If he survived, it was destined that he would return to her and accept his place near her, even if that meant he would never have her.

"Do you see a future where my decision brings me happiness?" she asked him, knowing she sounded shallow in asking only of herself.

"Some of your decisions already have. You know which ones they are." He held out his hands to her, a strange thing for him to do now that he was a being who did not seek physical touch. "I knew that taking up the burden of the Three-Eyed-Raven would make me into what I am now, but I chose that path because it was necessary for the survival of the people Brandon Stark cared for. While I am not entirely him now, he chose his own fate for his family, which is why I am the way I am, and I would do it again leading to this outcome if it meant your survival, Jon's and Arya's. Brandon Stark's reasons for becoming this other being were selfish but it benefited the greater good nonetheless and he would have wanted you to know that."

Sansa leaned over and kissed his forehead. "You _are_ something else now, but you are my brother. My baby brother. I love you, no matter what you are."

"He loved you, too."

Recalling these final words of his to mind, Sansa wiped at her eyes, sniffing back the phlegm running from her nose from both her emotions and the cold. Something nudged her shoulder and Ghost's head perked up to take in the visitor, but it was only Bronn who cast a blanket around her before sitting down with another wrapped around himself. Ghost watched him through one eye for a time but when Bronn offered Sansa a handkerchief, the wolf eased himself back into sleep.

"What're you crying over this time?" asked the sellsword.

"Nothing you would want to concern yourself about," said Sansa clippingly.

"As your sworn shield, it's me duty to attend you and protect you from harm and you're obviously fucked up emotionally, so I'll do me best to help. Is it about the bloody Hound again?"

"I have a right to be concerned for my friend, but if you must know, my heart is heavy for my little brother, or whatever has taken his place."

"He doesn't seem to mind what he is," said Bronn carelessly. "And you might not like it, but it's not hurting him, he's alive, and he's helped you out a great deal. You can't be selfish with how you want 'im to be when he was the one who came home. Would you have preferred for the younger one to live?"

Sansa shot him a look of warning. "Don't be cruel. I wish all of my family were still alive."

"But they're not. Even if your brother isn't completely 'imself, he's alive, and that should be enough for you."

"If you came here to console me in the name of duty, I'm afraid you've failed miserably, ser."

"Apologies, m'lady, it was never one of my strengths. But lemme tell you something I've come to know about siblings: you could do much worse, all things considering. With how shitty the world is and how many siblings turn on each other, you're lucky to have three who love you, even if one of 'em isn't fully intact. That's what drove the big man from your side: a bad relationship with his brother. At least yours don't want to kill you."

She had never considered that aspect of the Hound's childhood. How betrayed he must have felt when his own brother tried to kill him over a toy after raping their sister to death. To not have the love and protection of a sibling when the parents were already so neglectful or dead was to truly be alone and if the Hound's father had ignored the death of his daughter and protected his elder son to preserve the family name, the Hound had been on his own from a very young age. His mission to end his brother was not just a quest for vengeance, but to put an end to the hurt of the man who had never loved him as a brother should.

In that, Sansa was very fortunate, for she and her siblings had all loved one another dearly and would never do something as malicious as attempting to burn each other to prove a point. And now that two of her siblings were dead, she could not afford to be choosy with the ones who remained. She had to take them as they came, regardless of their plights, for they were all she had left when the world came burning down as ashes around her.

**/ /**

**SANDOR**

It took every morsel of self-control within Sandor to not climb back on his horse and ride north again as soon as he walked through the city gates into King's Landing. He had come so far and survived everything the world could throw before him as a promise that he would not have to return here, even to battle his brother, yet here he was. Farmers, villagers, and wanderers were still flooding through the gates, packing the city as Cersei commanded and ensuring that the casualties would be in the thousands if the Dragon Queen decided to take it by force. Cersei was relying on the Targaryen's soft heart for the defenseless to create a barrier thick enough that the former could escape if the dragons laid waste to the city. Even now, those with enough coin to buy their way into the inner bailey and those with children and elderly who were at a greater disadvantage were allowed to spread their bedrolls in the courtyard beneath the Red Keep, the final resolution.

Weaving through that mess of refugees would ensure that Sandor never got inside and so he would have to use his knowledge of the city to find another route inside. He, Mormont, and the girl left their horses to be attended by a stable boy and bought a handful of fresh fruit from a street vendor as they ducked into an alley and contemplated their next move. The first major hurdle had been to get through the gates without Gold Cloaks recognizing them, namely Sandor since Mormont hadn't been in the capital in decades and everyone believed Arya Stark had accidentally been killed when the Lannister soldiers murdered the members of her household. But they had walked through the gates as inconspicuously as the hobbled old man who had shat his pants on the road so now that they were here, Sandor realized that he had not thought far enough ahead.

His thoughts had been entirely centered on his forbidden encounter in the stables with the little bird and then the damning nightmares he had had following the girl's near-rape, leaving him little time to think of how he might get into the castle other than fighting his way through the gates. Stupid imbecile he was, of course he would have had to find an alternate route into the castle, though he had half been expecting to catch Cersei fleeing the castle in disguise with Gregor at her side. It would not be that easy.

"People are looking at us," said the girl.

"It might be because we're standing in an alley alone with hoods drawn up, looking every part the seedy characters that attract unwanted attention," said Mormont, slurping the juicy flesh of his orange off of the peel.

"We need to settle in, find a place to stay so we can plan where to go from here without half the city watching us. We can purchase a few rooms."

"You think there's rooms left in this shithole?" scoffed Sandor. "The whole city will have been bought out for weeks before we even got here."

"Well, we need to do something besides stand here or we're bound to have to explain ourselves to a couple of Gold Cloaks before long."

"You want to blend in, girl, go find a brothel," he suggested heatedly.

"Neither of you would blend into the clientele of a brothel," said Mormont.

"Why, because I'm a woman?" asked the girl. "They cater to women, they have men who sell themselves but perhaps I wanted a woman? They would accommodate me. I have as much right to enter a brothel as the two of you and half the girls servicing men in there are younger than me. And I could afford the best if I wanted to. No, Ser Jorah, you and I will be unremarkable customers but you," the girl gave Sandor a once-over, "Even with that hood on, you're hard to miss."

Sandor pulled his hair down impatiently over the mangled half of his face, covering the scars quite well, though he wished he had not trimmed his beard two days before, as the bushy length would have helped disguise him. He had returned to King's Landing exactly the same as he had left it down to the styling of his facial hair and the way he carried his sword. The only differences were that he wore no armor now and he was not covered in blood.

"Most of these people have come to seek refuge, not pleasure," said Mormont. "We might benefit from getting off the streets for a few hours and a brothel seems as good a place as any."

"Then the question is: which one, and where is it?" The girl strode up to a passing merchant and asked him quite plainly where they might find a brothel.

"Not much choice after the Faith Militant came frew an' took 'em all outta business, innet?" said the man. "Baelish's houses were the best but they were the firs' t'go. Now, it's rebuildin' from the ground oop. You want your money's worff, Cogger's is back open. You want a fuck wiff little coin? They's whores that come out near the beach after dark. Pay the Gold Cloaks two silvers apiece to keep walkin'."

"Where—" began the girl, but Sandor pushed her aside to get her moving. He knew the way to Cogger's, and he told her as much in a harsh grunt.

He had always gone to Cogger's before because he wanted no whore that had been with other Lannister soldiers, no woman who might have been sampled—willing or not—by his brother. None of them wanted to take the chance that Cogger's offered cleaner women when in reality, the proprietor had set himself up in Flea Bottom to draw in smugglers and sailors alike who always paid him handsomely in exotic goods for not having to travel far for a fuck. Sandor had gone there by asking about as to which brothels the soldiers and city watchmen avoided and he had no qualms about descending to the lowest of low places to pay for a woman. Cogger knew him by his size and his brother's reputation, so he always set aside one of the cleanest, experienced, yet not overused whores for him.

There was a risk in going to Cogger's now, especially if the man himself was still running the place and it still held his name over the door but if the brothels had been cleared out before, most likely the employed and the employers were not the same as before. It was a slim thing to hope for, but it was the one brothel that Sandor was sure would be devoid of soldiers and Gold Cloaks.

He led the way, ashamed to know the route, given present company. Men found pride in boasting of how many women they had been with, how many of them they had fucked at a time and all together, but Sandor found an unexplainable measure of indignity in having the girl wonder how many times he had frequented this particular brothel. The mention from her that she knew Sandor had kissed her sister made him feel that perhaps she was measuring him up to the little bird's past suitors. With no father to speak for her, the girl was taking on the role of determining what made a man an acceptable lover for her sister. Then he had to remind himself that he didn't _need _her approval to fuck the little bird, not that he would ever get the chance to now that he was finally here.

Cogger's was busy enough that their entrance went unnoticed and they took up a booth in plain view and reach of the door in case they needed to make a quick exit. Mormont paid for drinks, a shite vintage that burned going down like overly matured ale, but besides the wineskins purchased from the innkeeper in the Riverlands, Sandor had had nothing stronger than water to drink and was in desperate need of liquor in his system. He allowed himself to sink low in the booth until he sat at the same height as Mormont and though it pained his back to slouch, it was a necessary precaution. When he felt eyes on them, whether a casual glance in their direction or an inquisitive stare from one of the lounging whores, he subconsciously tugged at his hair to reposition it in front of his face.

The girl had struck up chat with a whore bordering on childhood, though she must have flowered already and was either sold or sold herself to Cogger's now that it was in need of fresh blood. It was an innocent enough conversation, but Sandor knew that the whore was likely to have her ears boxed and have a switch taken to the back of her legs if she didn't bring in paying customers and Sandor's party needed as little attention drawn to them as possible. When Mormont joined in, slipping the whore a gold dragon for her time and making sure she would not be punished for dillydallying, Sandor poured half of Mormont's wine into his own tankard, scanning the room for a familiar face and hoping to find none.

No such luck. There, at the foot of the staircase was a rather robust woman who was loudly explaining all the manners in which Cogger's served its customers. She had larger hips now, perhaps from birthing an unintentional child or two, and there were lines on her face that had not been there when Sandor first knew her, but the strawberry-blonde hair and quite prominent teeth were unforgettable.

His first woman, still employed at Cogger's, now mistress of the place. He had had her young with the coin he earned from Lord Tywin Lannister as a gift for taking up arms as Cersei's sworn shield. He had been ten-and-nine when he was assigned to the queen's disposal and a man untested with women. With the gold offered to him, he had decided that his new position might finally help him take a woman to bed since his previous endeavors yielded poor results due to his burned face.

When Sandor came to Cogger himself with his sack of gold, the man had given him a virgin. Sandor had her maidenhead as much as she had his manhood, both of them for the first time, though he made damn sure that she didn't know it so as not to go spreading the rumor that she was the first to bed the Hound. Not for bragging rights but because he didn't need word spreading that he didn't know how to fuck properly. As terrified as she had been of bedding a man, his face terrified her more, not that he had expected anything differently, and she never once looked at him during the interaction. She made no sound other than a few low grunts of pain as he tore through the soft tissue of her childhood, an especially discouraging thing to listen to as he heard some whoreson pounding into a woman next door with him shrieking like his trousers were alight and she making wildly dramatic moans of ecstasy. Sandor's virgin had asked him once to go slower, complaining that he was too large of a fit, though this puzzled him since he had heard it said that women preferred men who were gifted with size.

When his completion had come, he chased his pleasure, remembering at the last moment to withdraw and spill his seed on her belly to not get her with child. The elation his climax had brought him lasted as long as it took to do up his breeches and then he was left feeling unfulfilled. Passionless, quiet, awkward, none of the things Sandor had come to expect with bedding a woman. He knew many of them faked their moans to please the men who rode them to earn more coin, but the virgin had not even pretended to like it. By the look on her face, she absolutely hated it and he might as well have been raping her. If that was what he could look forward to with women, he would rather go celibate.

He didn't, though. He was a man and using his own hand was never quite the same as being inside a woman, and when he returned four years later to Cogger's with another sack of gold, this time given to him by Cersei herself in honor of Joffrey's birth, he knew what he wanted and what he most definitely didn't.

He didn't ask for the same woman again. No woman would want him twice and he didn't want a woman that he knew wouldn't look him in the face. Not one of the three he had bedded ever did. They looked away, though one or two of them did try to build up those infamous false moans that somehow made everything worse. With the third, he had even let her keep her clothes on and taken her from behind to spare both of them the humiliation of the whole thing. The fourth had earned his coin after the riot following Princess Myrcella's departure for Dorne, but did not earn his touch. He had needed a woman then, but could not bring himself to be with another if it wasn't the one he wanted and by then, he wasn't entirely sure that he _wanted _the inaccessible betrothed of King Joffrey. He just didn't want Joffrey to have her, and it made his desire for any working woman vanish.

Three women in twenty-and-seven years and not one of them had looked at him. Apart from the place where they were so intimately joined, they did not want him touching them, so he had done his best not to. They were there to work and he was there to loosen his load and there was nothing else to be had from that time. They had all but pretended that he did not exist, perhaps thinking of one of their other patrons to erase the hideousness of his face in favor of envisioning another.

Not like the little bird who had looked directly at him right up until the moment he kissed her. She had touched him, allowed him to touch her, given excited little whimpers that made blood surge to the tip of his cock. And in that, she was his first. His first obsession, his first longing, his first kiss, and his last.

His first woman no longer had to pleasure men as mistress of the house, but she would remember that Sandor was her first, so he ducked his head under the table on the pretense of picking up a dropped belonging when she passed by and remained like that as she asked the girl's new whore friend if she intended to waste valuable time chatting up unpaying customers, as Sandor had suspected might happen.

"They paid me just for sitting here with them," said the whore, and she apparently showed the mistress the handful of dragons she had earned for the pleasure of her company.

"Have you no interest in some of our other girls, ser?" asked the mistress, obviously impressed with the gold Mormont carried. "We have a fine selection of—"

"I have little interest in that sort of thing, good lady," said Mormont. "As far as I have traveled, I only sought somewhere to sit that wasn't in the shit of the streets and I wished to know more about the city, so I pulled your young girl here aside to ask some questions of her, though I knew she would be reprimanded if she did not earn coin for her time, so I paid her for it."

"For the coin you've already given her, you could continue to question her for the rest of the week, ser. Do come and find me if you should change your mind. As for your companion, does she care for something other than conversation?"

Sandor's neck was beginning to ache from bending over for so long, but he dare not emerge just yet and gave Mormont a small kick in the shins to get the woman moving.

"No, but you are gracious to offer. She is my niece and is considering taking up with the Silent Sisters," said Mormont. "But I will be sure to locate you, should I need you."

The mistress moved on and Sandor sat up, feeling the blood rush out of his head. The girl waited for him to explain himself but he only took a swig from his tankard and muttered, "I'm going to take a piss."

Making his way to the back entrance, he stepped into the alley to relieve himself and count himself lucky that the mistress had not recognized him or indeed, even noticed that he was there, as big of a man as he was. Thinking that perhaps he would remain out here until it was safe to move on from Cogger's, Sandor half-stepped inside, only to knock into a young woman, as young as the mistress had been when Sandor had had her.

"I don't believe I've seen you around Flea Bottom before," said the girl, her eyes widening at his height. "I'd remember such a _big_ man."

"Move along, girl. I have no coin for you," said Sandor coldly.

"Big, strong man like you, I don't need payment. I'm betting that there's things you could show me, things you could do to me that I've never experienced before."

She grasped his cock, trying to work him through his breeches, and then slammed him into the wall with a combination of his reluctance to touch her and her very apparent arousal. She wasn't strong, but he was fighting every urge to throw her off of him, as it would bring every whore and customer down on him and he would have to slaughter them all just to reach the door. Her lips were reaching up to his. No woman—save one—ever wanted to kiss him before, and this woman wouldn't either…if she saw his face.

Desperate, he shook his hair out of his face and the woman withdrew in alarm, eyes glued to the burns.

"Now fuck _off_," he snapped and she scurried off with a terrified glance back at him.

Now exposed, Sandor combed his hair back over the burns and hurried back to his booth, grasping Mormont's shoulder and bending over to whisper, "Someone recognized me." He watched the whore head upstairs unaccompanied, most likely to look for the owner of the establishment to alert him to the presence of the burned customer. "We need to leave."

The girl dropped two more coins into her friend's hands, thanked her for her time, and was the first out the doorway. The sun was going down over the rooftops, casting the streets into shadows and allowing them to duck into an unoccupied stall to allow Sandor to explain further.

"I fucking told you—"

"Who recognized you?" asked the girl.

"Just a whore. I don't think she knows who I am, but my face scared her enough and she'll have gone to summon Gold Cloaks or worse which means we have to get off the streets—"

"You there!"

_Fuck._

It was too much to hope for in that the voice that called out was not directed at him, so he grabbed both Mormont and the girl by the backs of their cloaks and drew them into the doorway behind him. He roared at the building's occupants to move as he crashed his way through to the back door. Seeing a familiar armory sign hanging to the left of the street, he took a right, feeling the cobblestone street start to slant downward. He could see the harbor and knew he was headed in the right direction, but by the shouts following in their wake, he doubted he would get there in time.

"Clegane, they're gaining!" warned Mormont.

"I know where we're going, stay with me," shouted Sandor, dodging down a shit-filled street. He hopped the middle of the walkway which doubled as a latrine and darted left, knowing that the other path would lead to a brick wall. He could hear the girl and Mormont panting behind him, relying on his knowledge of the city streets to see them through.

An armed guard stepped out to block his way but Sandor closed in before the man could attack, grabbing onto the facial features poking out from under the man's helmet and shoving him into the wall with a solid knock to the back of his head that rendered him unconscious.

Finally, he saw the grey waters stretch out before him, deceivingly calm unlike the last time he had set eyes upon them in a towering wall of green flame. They had come to the wall that overlooked the Blackwater with nowhere to go, lest they doubled back and took the city watch on in a suicidal dash.

"You said you knew where you were going!" shouted the girl fearfully, eyes darting every which way for an escape route.

"Aye, that I do." Sandor seized her by the front of her leather armor and threw her bodily into Blackwater Rush. This was the lowest point on the wall, the safest place to jump from—or be thrown, and he knew she could swim. He heard the splash of her body hitting the water and hoped that she had the good sense to swim under the surface for as long as she could until she came up by the overgrown foliage along the bank.

"Did you plan that?" asked Mormont, sounding somewhat impressed.

"One of us needed to make it. Wasn't going to be me and your armor would make you sink right to the bottom. She'll be fine."

"Aye, she will now."

A clatter of metal on stone announced the arrival of the city watch and Sandor kept them at bay with the reach of his broadsword, but he didn't like his chances at all, even with a swordsman as skilled as Mormont backing him.

"Drop your weapons!"

Gold Cloaks were not worth dying over, even in the masses. An incompetent bunch of cunts wearing helmets shaped like cocks, they would swarm Sandor and Mormont right here despite their ineptitude with a sword. Sandor had no intention of dying before getting one last go at his brother, even if it was a mad rush at him in the throne room with his hands bound at his back. No one was allowed to kill Sandor except his brother and even then, Sandor had vowed long ago to take the fucker with him.

It was so very tempting to kill at least one Gold Cloak, as it would most likely be his last-ever kill if he didn't manage to get to his brother, but that one kill would ensure that he never reached his brother.

He dropped his sword and Mormont did the same, giving Sandor a look of disappointment that both of them were about to die for Sandor's life mission and he was none too happy about it.

/

**|Sorry for the long(er) wait for the update. We're getting to that halfway point where I know where the story will end but getting there is a chore. The in-betweener chapters will do you dirty every time when you want to get to the juicier, bloodier, more thrilling bits.|**


	17. Chapter 17: In the Lion's Den

**JORAH**

Cersei Lannister had been at the evening meal, which was why it took so long for her to make an appearance in the throne room. Jorah and Clegane had been here for quite some time, shackled at the wrists and joined by one ankle apiece as they awaited their sentencing, which Jorah suspected would not last long at all. The woman was prompt in delivering her words, giving them with a harsh sting and a foul aftertaste and she would want to be done with Jorah and Clegane as quickly as possible—unless for some reason, she wouldn't. She had no quarrel with Jorah other than that he served Daenerys and if Cersei remembered that, she would have him executed for treason but she would recognize Clegane and if she was feeling especially sadistic, she would kill the man slowly.

Every breath Jorah drew in unison with the steps he took to climb into the Red Keep lasted a lifetime. He was prepared to meet the queen's justice at the end of this long walk and he would liked to have spent his remaining moments far away in his mind with the humid breeze of Meereen sweeping through the great pyramid as he sat at council with his queen. Far and away from the war that had begun to break her, far from the people who did not want her even after she had liberated them. He would liked to have remained in that memory for the rest of his life, however short it was now destined to be, but instead he found himself mentally berating Clegane for his idiocy and his ineptitude for planning ahead.

As they entered the throne room and were made to stand at the base of the steps leading up to the seat made of some several dozen swords, Jorah wanted to throw himself upon Clegane and break the man's nose, knock out a small collection of teeth, _hurt_ him. Daenerys had trusted that Clegane was clever enough to fulfill his mission, but her faith in him was sorely misplaced and Jorah was about to die for it. His queen had unwittingly sent him to his death because Clegane was an ill-tempered, slapdash, illogical, unprepared idiot.

"Her Grace, Queen Cersei Lannister," announced a small, bent man wearing a robe of black.

Cersei emerged from an antechamber archway, giving pause on the threshold just long enough to see what matter was so important that she had been called away from supper to attend. She gave Jorah a careless glance, but from the way her eyes settled on Clegane, Jorah knew that she was not feeling merciful toward him today. Hands folded, she climbed the steps to the Iron Throne and sat perched on the edge, for which Jorah could not blame her, as it looked to be a most uncomfortable thing. Her full lips were pursed with malevolent intent, her emerald eyes narrowed as she gazed upon her prisoners. Her hair had grown out to shoulder length since last Jorah saw her, sprouting the new southern style that he had seen on many women in the streets far below them. She looked more the queen who had wed Robert Baratheon now than she did at the dragon pit, but the upward pull at the corner of her lip suggested that she was barely withholding her temper.

"Who are you?" Cersei asked Jorah, for which he was surprised, as he had been expecting a snarl.

"Ser Jorah Mormont," he replied, but then received a sharp jab to the back of his head from one of the soldiers.

"You will address her as 'Your Grace'."

"She is a queen, but she is not mine," said Jorah, earning himself a whack to the stomach with the handle of a spear.

"I do recall you now," said Cersei. "You were there when my brother orchestrated the gathering to discuss the threat beyond the Wall. You serve the Targaryen girl."

"Faithfully."

"Let's see how faithful you are without your tongue, traitor," said the guard who had continuously assaulted him.

"No," said Cersei. "Leave him. I will not have him harmed just yet when he is of great value alive and whole. His companion, on the other hand…"

Mormont felt Clegane's body posture tighten through the chain that linked them together. It was a warrior's instinct to run, but he had nowhere to go, shackled to Jorah with ten spears on either side guarding him. He was truly cornered and the adrenaline that would have aided him in making a run for it was on the verge of spilling over with no way to loosen itself.

"The disobedient dog. You were trembling to unearth the wight you had hidden in that cleverly crafted box the last I saw of you."

"Should have let it bite your face off for all the good it did to bring it down this far south," retorted Clegane. "Not that vows mean anything to me—never have—but you swore in front of all of them that you'd send assistance north to aid in the war against the wights and the only one who showed up was your brother."

"You have no place to be speaking of upholding vows when you abandoned your post as my son's protector."

"I never took any vows. It was for a full belly and a feather cot that I stayed on to keep watch over that little prick you birthed. I could have left well before I had, could have made off with whatever I wanted, but I left when I did because I'd had enough of him. He didn't die because I wasn't there for him, but thousands died because you didn't send aid as you'd promised. I fought in that battle against the dead and it would have made a godsdamned bloody difference to have your men with us. But since you sat here with your head up your arse while others died for you, you owe every single survivor your life. It's because of dogs like me that you're alive to give me a telling off for not groveling to your bastard son's whims."

"You deserted," said Cersei viciously as if the subject of thousands of fallen warriors was a trifle matter compared to the death of her son. "You left my son to die at the Blackwater—"

"Didn't though, did he? Died from poisoned wine at his own fucking wedding after guzzling it like a babe hungry for its mother's teat and if you're suggesting I could have saved him from that, you're as thick as he was."

"It's treason to speak ill of a king, even a deceased one."

"But I've already done that, so bloody well get on with it."

"If you serve the Targaryen girl, why are you here ahead of her? My scouts tell me that she is yet two weeks march north, yet here you are, in the company of her own lapdog. Did she send the both of you to kill me in the hopes of ending the war before she arrives?"

"I didn't come for you," spat Clegane.

Not understanding at first, Cersei fidgeted on the throne, but as dawning appeared where there had been confusion, it gave way to a victorious smirk. "You really are a damaged fool, aren't you, Sandor? To travel all this way to fulfill a child's dream, it was such a monumental waste of time. Ser Gregor…"

From the same antechamber from which she had come, Jorah saw a broad armored chest completely filling the archway. The man to which it belonged had to bend double to fit through it and with every chainmailed step, the marble floor trembled beneath Jorah's feet. His memory did not serve him well, for he remembered The Mountain being somewhat smaller than this hulk of a being before them. The firelight reflected two blood-red orbs back at them, but unlike Ghost's whose eyes were a source of comfort to Jorah, the ones that looked down on him now made a cold shiver run down Jorah's nape. He had not felt such discomfort since battling the dead and they had come in numbers, defeatable by dragonglass and fire, but this—this _thing_ before him now was terrifying to behold. What man could strike him down? The more Jorah stared, the more the fool he thought Clegane to be in thinking he could kill _that_.

"Your brother has come home to kill you, Ser Gregor," said Cersei, now positively beaming. "What say you to that?"

The Mountain descended from the dais, eyes never leaving Clegane and Jorah had a sudden urge to pull Clegane far back out of his brother's reach. He did not care to find out what would happen once Ser Gregor reached them

Ser Gregor stepped in close to Clegane with not even a foot between them. There was a moment of complete and utter stillness where neither man moved, each trying to harm the other by glare alone and any other man would have quailed under that red-eyed gaze but Clegane did not look away. Then Ser Gregor's colossal gloved and armored hand snatched out with the speed of a striking viper and closed around his little brother's throat. Unprepared for such an attack, Clegane tried to break Ser Gregor's hold, tugging with bound hands to free himself, but it was to no avail. In just a few short seconds, Clegane's face was turning blue, his eyes bulging as the life was squeezed from within him. In an attempt to throw Ser Gregor off balance, Clegane leaned back, letting his knees fall out from under him, but Ser Gregor was able to hold Clegane even at this length with no faltering.

Jorah then saw panic begin to set in as Clegane realized he was about to die at his brother's hands without ever accomplishing his last undertaking to end the monstrous man. He was powerless in the clutches of this undead being that had taken over his brother's body and the gargled sound that came from deep within his throat sounded so innocently afraid.

"Leave him!" Jorah hollered suddenly. "Leave him be!" He was the only one who cared if Sandor Clegane died right here beside him and he had no power to stop the throttling, but he had the means to cause a distraction. Throwing himself forward to shove Ser Gregor's arm away, Jorah found it to be utterly immobile, cold, and solid. He was not even worth the effort it took to swat a fly away as Ser Gregor ignored him.

Not taking kindly to being treated as if his prowess as an experienced fighter were nothing, Jorah took advantage of the lack of reaction from the soldiers to go for the Mountain's sword. It was a weighty thing, five feet of steel with some leftover to make up the hilt, handle, and pommel. Jorah nearly dropped it as he took it in both hands, swung it back behind him, and smashed it against the Mountain's helmet. He did not even make a dent in the gold-plated iron, but he did knock it askew, causing Ser Gregor to release Clegane who fell onto all fours, dragging Jorah with him so that Jorah stumbled right into Ser Gregor's grasp.

Lifted as if he weighed as little as a feather pillow, Jorah felt his feet leave the ground and glanced down to see Clegane now sprawled on his back with one ankle dangling in the air beside Jorah's left foot. Ser Gregor slammed Jorah down upon the floor, almost guaranteeing a large crack where Jorah had made impact with it. Surely, something was broken now as pain stabbed Jorah in the back and the ribs, but it paled in comparison to the sudden crushing sensation of having his lungs collapse as Ser Gregor placed a boot on Jorah's chest and began to press down. Jorah punched at the sensitive bone at the man's ankle, but when his knuckles collided with the firm leather boot, he felt something fracture in at least two fingers. The Mountain's foot dug in and Jorah more or less choked out a shout of pain, twisting in place to try and wriggle out from underneath the giant but it was like being cemented underneath a sturdy brick structure that had stood for ages.

He was going to die by being stepped on by a Mountain.

Clegane stuck his leg between his brother's and swiped out, knocking Ser Gregor to the floor and releasing the pressure from Jorah's chest. Heaving, Jorah tested to see if lungs would support the enormous breath he needed to gulp down and felt the bruising already beginning to form. He was pulled along the floor a few inches as Clegane stood up in front of him, creating a barrier between Jorah and Ser Gregor.

"Come on, you fucker," Clegane invited.

Ser Gregor stood up with no change in expression but his body posture revealed that he was coming in for the kill.

"Enough, Ser Gregor, you will have your chance, and many more to come," said Cersei. "I do not want them killed just yet."

She summoned Ser Gregor back to her side and Clegane bent double with his hands on his knees, spitting. Jorah tested the expanding capabilities of his ribs after he had had a Mountain on them and by gently running his fingers along each bone individually, he found none to be broken, though it was a close thing. His hand was the greater issue, swelling and cracked. Cersei leaned onto one armrest as she watched her prisoners moan many steps below her. "The Commander of the City Watch informed me that you were seen with a young woman but they have yet to find her. Who is she?"

Clegane rasped out the words, "We were in a brothel, of course we were seen with a fucking woman."

"I wasn't under the impression that you favored women that much. You only visited them a handful of times in the twenty-and-seven years you served my house. Who is the woman you were traveling with?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I saw a wight brought before me in my own kingdom. I saw a dragon fly overhead as I held parlay with those you serve. The identity of the woman in your company would be far more believable than either of those occurrences."

Clegane said nothing.

"Very well. Hold him."

Four soldiers apiece took hold of both of Clegane's arms, forcing one out in front as Cersei's Hand-the former maester stripped of his chain-came forward with a clamping tool.

"I don't believe you were properly introduced to my Hand, Qyburn. You both will become well-acquainted with him in the days to come, I assure you."

"Keep the other one down this time," said the Hand, digging the tip of the tool under Clegane's forefinger nail.

Battered and bruised, Jorah did not feel like engaging in another fight he was sure to lose, but he was unwilling to watch Clegane get every last fingernail pulled just to keep mum on their female companion.

"There's no need for that," he said quickly as the soldiers forced him to his knees and held him at swordpoint to prevent him from going to Clegane's aid again. "I'll tell you who it was."

"You'll keep your fucking mouth shut," snarled Clegane, shooting him a look that was not commanding him to hold his tongue, but asking, for Arya's own safety. He was willing to bow to torture and endure it if it meant keeping Arya's identity from Cersei, for the girl meant a great deal to him. Jorah would be betraying that trust and respect Clegane had for him if he revealed her now, but what harm could be done if Cersei already believed the girl dead? Was Clegane willing to go through the seven layers of hells just to keep the name silent when Arya had more than likely already fled the city?

Jorah's hesitation cost Clegane the first nail, and it was not a quick removal. The maester knew which method would draw out the most pain and he made sure to twist, yank, and claw at the nail until all that remained of Clegane's finger was a bloody mess. Clegane cursed his way through the pain but that would soon give way to relentless screaming if Jorah bit his tongue any longer.

Qyburn pulled three more nails and Jorah had to grit his teeth to try and protect his ears from Clegane's shouts. Blood was dripping freely from Clegane's hand and the cracked sound making its way out of his damaged throat was a terrible thing to have to listen to. It was when the maester grabbed the thumbnail that Clegane caved.

"The girl," he gasped, and Cersei ordered Qyburn to stay the clamp.

"I knew we would get there eventually, though that didn't take half as long as I expected. You must take care to not spoil him so quickly in the future, Ser Gregor," said Cersei carelessly. "The identity of your traveling companion then, Hound."

"Sansa Stark," rasped Clegane.

Jorah had to work quickly in masking his face to make it appear as if this was not news to him.

"Sansa Stark," repeated Cersei. "What would that little bitch be doing with you on a mission to assassinate your brother? It makes no more sense than having Ser Jorah here in your company."

"I chose to accompany him of my own accord," lied Jorah. "A debt owed."

"And Sansa Stark was along for the pleasure of your company, was she?" scoffed Cersei. "Last I heard, she was the widow of the recently deceased Ramsay Bolton."

"That marriage was never official while she remained wed to your brother," said Jorah. "And Lady Sansa has taken up the sword. She's skilled with a blade, as she should be with her family's battle history."

"She's always been a stupid girl, but why would she risk the North just to show off this newfound skill?"

"She forfeited the North to her brother, Jon Stark," invented Jorah. "He was naturalized by Queen Daenerys Targaryen and is now Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell. Lady Sansa has no claim to her ancestral home, so nothing is at stake if she were to be captured."

"And she was along for the adventure of it all?" asked Cersei skeptically.

"You doubt her abilities, but she fought in the Great Battle and lived where other, more experienced warriors fell. Following the battle, she took Sandor Clegane as her sworn shield and promised to repay her own debt to him, as he saved her brother's life north of the Wall. Determined to see his quest through, he allowed her to travel with us to accept her debt."

"Then it must be with bitter disappointment that she discovers that Sandor Clegane does not last long as a sworn shield, abandoning his charge when it suits him. He was sworn to give his life for my son, to protect Joffrey until he was released by my order or death. But he ran like the beaten animal he is, leaving my son, a boy—"

"A boy who tried to stab his sister over a toy when they were little more than babes!" thundered Clegane, breaking what little restraint he had to let loose verbally on the queen he despised. His voice was hoarse, but he would have his say with or without the full use of it. "A boy who enjoyed torturing his brother's pet kittens and went to tip the child's crib when he was still at the breast. A boy who took pleasure in seeing a helpless girl beaten and stripped half-naked in this room with half the court watching. Your son was a cunt and if he had lived to be a a true king, he would have made the Mad King look like a kind-hearted, decent, nurturing man. You should have given him rules instead of praise, should have made him respect life instead of discard it. You should have let King Robert beat the shit out of him when he did wrong instead of telling him that his actions had no consequences. You made him what he was and so you brought his death on him. You killed that boy, you and his father."

By the stony silence that followed Clegane's statement, Cersei knew that Clegane was not referring to Robert Baratheon.

"Something went wrong with that boy from a young age and you should have seen it. His own fucking stupidity and ruthlessness brought the world's fury down on you and that's why you lost the other two. I told your brother this and I'll tell you: they were good children who didn't deserve death when it came for them but they're all dead now and it was by no fucking fault of mine."

Fearless was the word that came to mind as Jorah saw Clegane spit the truth out at Cersei in full awareness of what it would cost him to say such things to her. The word that came to mind when Cersei regarded him in return was hate.

"Sandor Clegane, I, Cersei of the House Lannister, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, sentence you to die. And you will die slowly. You will remain in perfect health, not poisoned or malnourished, but you will be broken piece by piece. You will hear the footsteps of your tormenters coming for you and you will grow to dread it, cringe away from it, weep in its presence. Every second of my son's agonizing death will be brought upon you a hundred fold. You will beg for the mercy of death and you will not receive it until I have been satisfied."

"Then have at it," Clegane invited.

"Jorah Mormont, your fate stands. You will yet draw breath until terms can be negotiated. I daresay your savage queen will pay handsomely in blood to have you returned to her. Get them out of my sight."

Hauled to his feet, Jorah let the soldiers begin the rhythm that would allow him to keep pace with Clegane's much longer and larger stride, hearing Cersei tell her Hand, "Sweep the city. I want her brought in alive."

"You won't find her," called Clegane with a smirk. "I made damn sure."

Back down so very many steps they went with Jorah tripping on several of them when Clegane descended too quickly. Down a spiral staircase with more steps than Jorah could count, down into impenetrable darkness with only the glowing orange light of the torches to guide them. Finally, when they leveled out, they were led forward through only more pitch black, taking a turn here and there and Jorah was certain that he could not have found his way out if such an opportunity arose. There was no need for doors down here in the Black Cells, the infamous catacomb-like dungeons.

He was pulled to a halt, a good thing for just now his legs were starting to feel rather unsupportive. The shackle at his ankle was removed as he was dragged against one wall and Clegane the other. His wrists were linked to a long chain hammered into the wall, giving him freedom to scratch his nose if need be, but he would not be able to grab anything that wasn't already within a meter's reach. Cold iron closed around his throat, pinching at the skin on the sides and making it difficult to swallow. If he cared to test the reach of his chains at the moment, he would wager that he could fully stand up and move about two steps from side to side. Leaning forward, he found that with a small amount of strain, he could touch Clegane's boot with his own, but otherwise, he was unable to reach his companion which did not bode well if this Hand of the Queen planned to torture Clegane right across from Jorah who would be unable to do anything but shout.

With no word, no water, and no way of seeing one another, Jorah and Clegane were cast into darkness as the guards took the torches with them. Jorah could hear Clegane's croaky breaths in addition to the labored ones coming from his own lungs that seemed to not be running at full capacity, as he felt like he could not draw in a proper breath.

"Stupid whoreson, what were you thinking when you went for his sword?" asked Clegane, sounding as if he were trying to make himself somewhat comfortable.

"I was thinking that it was better to die trying to prevent him from strangling you than to stand there and watch him do it," said Jorah, peeved that he was receiving Clegane's disdain for coming to his aid rather than his gratitude.

"And he almost killed you for it."

"He almost killed both of us, which brings me to a burning question I've harbored since you told the war council that you planned to kill him: _how_ in seven hells are you supposed to kill him? He's a wight with motivation, impervious to attack."

"You had the right idea, take his head off."

"You'd have to get his helmet off first and I barely managed to knock it out of place. It only slid to the right, not even enough to obscure his view."

"You've got to use your own sword, you idiot. Trying to kill him with his sword won't do you any good if you can't lift the damn thing."

"I'll bear that in mind when next I get the opportunity to use my own sword," said Jorah sardonically.

"You might still get the chance if Cersei demands negotiations with your queen."

"Aye, Cersei will send envoy to the queen," agreed Jorah. "And she'll demand that Queen Daenerys turn her armies away, hold back her dragons, and surrender."

"You think your queen will give up everything from the clothes on her back to her own fucking dragons for you?"

No, Daenerys would not give up what she had desired since her brother's death. She had grown from the girl who reluctantly accepted her birthright to a woman obsessing over it and she would not throw that away so freely for Jorah's life. She was willing to sacrifice the lives of the many dying soldiers at Winterfell for the maester to give Jorah priority over all the rest and it had been an easy command, for the soldiers were expendable to her at that moment, but would there be the same desperation and willingness to do whatever was necessary if she saw Jorah kneeling before Ser Gregor at the executioner's block? What would she give for her bear?

"She wouldn't and even if she would, I would never allow her to," said Jorah to mask his uncertainty. He was not entirely sure what Daenerys would do when the time came, but he did not want Clegane to think that Jorah doubted her. "I did not come all this way just to see her throw her birthright away on my behalf."

"She owes it to you, though. She sent you to follow me, so when she finds out that you've got the headsman's axe hovering over your neck, she'll know it was her fault and that if you die, that's on her."

"And Lady Sansa?" asked Jorah quickly, heatedly.

"What of her?" countered Clegane.

"Would she give up all that she has acquired for you?"

"She'd be a stupid girl if she did. She hasn't known me long or well enough for that nonesense. And she cares too much about what her people think of her to surrender the North for a dog bred in the South."

"Living with Lannisters for most of your life, you've seen how people can do horrible things for the ones they love, but hasn't your time in the North also shown you the good things people will do for the ones they love?" asked Jorah shrewdly. Clegane was a bigger fool than Jorah initially believed if he thought that his attentions to Lady Sansa could be passed off as a loyal dog doing his duty and Lady Sansa was taken with him as well, which made her potential submission of her lands in favor of Clegane's life seem quite reasonable—to think of, but not in execution.

"You're from Bear Island, aren't you?" asked Clegane suddenly.

"Aye."

"Then, way back there is where you go with that horseshite," he barked.

Sensing that now was not the best time to pursue the subject, Jorah changed tactics. "Why did you tell Cersei that it was Lady Sansa who was seen in the brothel with us?"

"She was the only woman whose name I could think of to replace her sister's with that greasy little shit pulling my nails out. And I'd told the bitch she wouldn't believe me, didn't I? Didn't have a plan once I said the name, but you covered those tracks well enough without my help."

Yes, Jorah fed into the lie, but how many more times could he come to Clegane's aid? How many more times would Cersei allow him to? It was his duty, his last duty assigned to him by his queen to see Clegane safely through to the other side and reunite the man with Lady Sansa. If this was to be the end and Jorah had already failed before they'd begun, he would go to his grave a complete disgrace.

"You've gone silent on me when I was expecting an answer, Mormont."

"If you plan to continue to feed her lies to satisfy her, I need to know ahead of time what those lies are so that we are giving her the same lies with no discrepancies between our stories."

"There's no more information she needs from me, so it'll be my pain that satisfies her," said Clegane, sounding far too placid about his imminent fate. "And besides having your chest crushed under my brother's boot, she'll let no more harm come to you because she needs a healthy prisoner to barter with. She doesn't intend to trade me because there's no one to trade me to, so this is where we cease our partnership."

"Are you not terrified? Gods, man, she's going to make sport of you every day from now until negotiations can be put through and even after that, if you remain her prisoner, you will not survive the horrors she has in store for you."

"I had no idea, you wanker, many thanks."

"You know what's to come—"

"Of course I fucking know what's to come. I'm choosing to be calm while I can because if I lose my head now, she'll know she's already broken me. I won't give her or my brother that satisfaction. They'll get nothing from me."

Jorah wanted to point out that a stubborn will to hold his silence while under the knife was not going to last long, but he admired this man's refusal to let his failure be his downfall as well. It was the same acceptance Jorah had possessed when he first felt the Greyscale taking hold up to the moment before Samwell Tarly had come to slice his skin off to remove it. Admittance of defeat, but determination to end things on his own terms. Already Clegane had sampled the horrors to come and if Cersei was to be relied on, there would be many, many more, but Clegane was a man who had been ready for death longer than he had wished to live.

What was it he had said to Jorah in the presence of the dragons? _I don't enjoy living, but I'd like to a bit longer_. A bit longer to kill his brother, and then die. And now he would not get that chance, his brother would continue to guard Cersei while Clegane was slowly mutilated to death, and the man was _calm._

Jorah, however, was not willing to let this be the end for the man across from him. He commiserated Sandor Clegane in all of his misfortunes and related more to him than he did any other man despite having almost no similarities to him. They were two men from different walks of life, never having known each other until Jorah first saw him in the ice cells of Eastwatch by the Sea but he respected Clegane's refusal to be bothered by the rules of the crown. He lived for himself, sought what he wanted, and accepted it when he could not obtain it. It was not healthy to live life with naught but revenge on the brain, but he was a man who had never been offered any sort of friendship that might give his life meaning until it was too late. Lady Sansa and Arya Stark were the only individuals who had given his life purpose, the only ones who could garner some sort of favorable reaction out of him when all else had been vulgarity and disdain and his last act as a free man had been to remove the latter of the two from danger instead of taking the leap himself.

His last days had been spent protecting one of the Stark girls and daydreaming about the other, which was a depressing way to bring one's life to a close. For the lonesome life he had lead, Jorah felt that the man deserved more. He knew Clegane would still take his brother's life if given the chance, but Jorah wanted more for him than that, and not just because Daenerys had commanded it of him. Far from now being angry with Clegane for allowing them to be captured, Jorah was feeling a sense of kinship after Clegane had placed himself in front of Jorah as the Mountain gathered himself for another attack. Clegane might have been able to kill his brother as Ser Gregor squashed Jorah's chest, taking advantage of Jorah's pain and possible death to also end his brother, but he didn't. He had actively chosen to trip Ser Gregor over attacking him—for Jorah.

It was a selfless, instinctive act that Jorah had seen from him time and again. Who had given up his hold of Drogon's spine to grab Jorah as Jorah toppled from the dragon's back? Who had carried Jorah with many wounds of his own because there was no one left to help him? Who had risen out of the mud to kill the Lannister soldier when the latter had moved to stab Jorah? This man. This isolated, unwanted, tortured soul.

And how many times had Jorah done the same? Cersei would not have allowed Ser Gregor to kill his brother in the throne room, for being throttled was too quick of a death for this man she hated for no good reason. Jorah's actions to come to Clegane's aid were fruitless, for he had had to be rescued in the end. He had yet to pay Clegane back in kind and he refused to meet his father in the next life of the gods and the long-dead before doing so.

"You will not die before I say so, Clegane," said Jorah resolutely. "I forbid you to die while I have yet to repay my debt to you."

Clegane's response came in the form of pained laughter that echoed back at them a hundred times over, bouncing off of the algae-coated stones and filling the Black Cells with the sound of Sandor Clegane's mirth, deranged as it may be.

"You try and repay any debt you feel you owe me and I promise you, I'll be the one lighting your pyre when you end up dead," said Clegane once his laughter had subsided enough to allow him to speak.

"Mind that you steer clear of the flames this time," said Jorah.

/ /

**|AUTHOR'S NOTE: With no disrespect meant to Hafthor Bjornsson who plays Gregor Clegane in Seasons 4-8, I found the first actor in Season 1, Conan Stevens, to be an extremely intimidating presence (and I also bought that he was older than Rory McCann, though all three actors are younger than Rory). For this story, my Mountain is a re-imagining of an undead Gregor Clegane as played by Conan. And this will be somewhat relevant later. That is all.|**


	18. Chapter 18: A Mother's Revenge

**SANDOR**

He had had this dream many times, but it never lost its sweetness with repetition.

Joffrey had returned to his chambers after having his betrothed humiliated at court and he ordered Sandor to stand guard outside his door, only Sandor didn't heed him. Instead he marched inside to find the little prick kicking furniture about in a rage at being showed up by his Imp uncle.

"I told you to stand guard outside!" the King whined, tossing his wash basin to the floor and smashing the porcelain underfoot.

"You go right on ahead and fuck yourself," said Sandor.

The boy looked upon him in pure disblief that his dog had dared not only disobey him, but insult him, and in the worst way possible. "What did you say to me? What did you dare just say to _me_? How _dare_ you, you insubordinate bastard! I'll have your tongue cut out, I'll have your head!"

Unfazed, Sandor took one step toward him and the boy tripped over his own feet, cowering against his canopy and very much aware that this man who had sworn to protect him could also crush him if he felt so inclined. He realized that his orders had always been carried out by bigger, stronger men and that his Hound was one of those men, but now that he was alone with his dog, who would come to his aid if the dog itself meant to do him harm? There was such satisfying power in seeing the boy king tremble and sink into a puddle of his own piss.

"The only man who could cut me down is my brother and he's not here. You won't threaten me, little king. You won't speak of this to anyone because if you do, I'll do to you what you would have done to that girl today. You'll not ever lay hand on her again, you'll not ever set your Kingsguard on her, and you'll not tell your bitch mother to do it for you. If that girl receives a bruise from you, I'll break your arm. If you cut her, I'll open your guts. I'll gladly die if it means I get to take you with me and make no mistake, you cunt, if you send anyone for me to try and kill me, you'll breathe your last with my sword in your belly. Now tell me you understand."

The only sound the bitch of a king managed to make was a whimper.

"Use your words, boy, you never ran dry of them before."

"Yes," he squeaked.

"Yes, _what_?"

"I understand."

He had often woken from this dream in a mixture of guilt and anger at not being bold enough to actually have confronted the boy about his treatment of the Lady of Winterfell. If he had, might the girl have never been cast aside in favor of the Tyrell woman? Might she have never gone with Littlefinger and been traded to the Boltons, but allowed Sandor to take her? Where might they have gone, if she had let him liberate her when he had the chance?

It was an answer he would never know, but since his parting with the little bird, he had had the dream again and again, each time ending with a jump through the years to some roadside inn where he and the little bird shared a bed as they journeyed aimlessly. With Winterfell still unoccupied and in ruins, he could not take her home, so she stayed with him, not for his protection, not for duty, but because she wanted to. He would dream of her in a woman's body, now traveling under an alias but claiming him as her sworn shield. By day they traveled on horseback with no destination in mind, only moving for the sake of moving and keeping ahead of any Lannister soldiers who might recognize either of them. By night, they split the bed, but when she asked that he step outside as she changed into her nightgown, he would often peek at her to see an unmarked body apart from the few blows Joffrey had managed to get in before Sandor threatened him.

In these new additions to his already existing dream, Sandor would lay facing away from her and feel her hand curling around his waist as she pulled herself closer to him for warmth. He would then shift about to see if she was asleep and unconsciously seeking him out or if she was awake and very much aware of her proximity to him. Every time, he would roll toward her to see her ice-blue eyes watching him and her hand would fall from around his waist to rest at his crotch. Then he would harden and gauge her for reaction, giving her the option to move away but she never did. She would move closer, pulling him to her, on top of her, tugging at his breeches. By some cruel game of the gods who must have been watching these wistful dreams, he would then wake with his hardened shaft still wanting and not receiving.

In the blinding darkness of the Black Cells, it was no different. He had the dream of confronting Joffrey and dreamed of the little bird's lust for him and then awoke to a torch not two inches from his face. He shouted and kicked out in alarm, but the torch-bearer withdrew quickly enough to avoid him. The creased, baggy skin and pouchy steel-grey eyes of Qyburn greeted him and Sandor made a swipe at him but the Hand was quite nimble for his age.

"Fascinating," he mused. "The Queen did inform me that you greatly feared fire, but most prisoners who dwell in the Black Cells long enough welcome the source of light, even if it's thrust into their faces. But not you, my friend. You would rather sit in the gloom."

"I'd rather shove that torch up your arse if you come near me with it again," Sandor promised.

"You must understand that henceforth, what I do to you is not because of a personal reckoning I have with you, but merely me following my queen's orders and catering to my own morbid and natural sense of curiosity. I have not had the opportunity to experiment in such drastic ways because Her Grace has not been in the business of taking prisoners of late. And if you are anything like your brother, you will prove to be a formidable opponent for me as a pioneer of unconventional torture methods. But again, this is merely a command and I hold no ill will toward you."

"That won't stop me from chopping off your cock and pulling your guts out through the hole it leaves if I get my hands on you."

"Definitely as foul-tempered as your brother," the former maester observed.

"You'll not compare me to him, you greasy little cocksucker."

"I find that comparing siblings when performing experiments is beneficial to genetic research," said Qyburn.

Sandor noted how the Hand had moved out of Sandor's arm reach, but was still reasonably close to Sandor's boot and he brought it up hard, catching the man's balls. The Hand dropped the torch and crumpled, nursing his groin with a high-pitched moan.

"Compare that, you wrinkled twat."

Qyburn's escort, two of the Kingsguard whose faces Sandor could not make out, began to assault him with their armored fists and he sank as low to the ground as he could, covering his head and curling his knees to his chest to protect his vital organs.

"Not too rough with him," squeaked the Hand. "I need him whole."

With his days numbered, Sandor knew that any act of defiance on his part would only make the hammer come down harder on him, but he had heard what sort of foul experiments this former maester got up to and if the man was going to do severe damage to him, Sandor would return it in kind at every opening.

"No more of that nonsense unless I give the order," scolded Qyburn.

"He attacked the Hand, my lord, that in and of itself is punishable by death," said a voice Sandor recognized as belonging to Ser Balon Swann.

"He is already sentenced to death. Do you plan to kill him twice? He understands his fate and I would consider him an unworthy prisoner if he did not fight for his life through any means necessary. You can expect much more of that lashing out from now until the day that the Queen commands that he dies and if you strike him down every time, I will be working with an addle-brained simpleton, which is not what Her Grace commanded. She wants him to be fully aware of what is happening to him and he must remain in as perfect health as we can afford to leave him in. So you will not touch him other than by my command, ser."

"Yes, my lord."

"Bring him, and the other as well."

Mormont would not be subjected to whatever Qyburn had in store for Sandor. More than anything, he was most likely being brought along as a scare tactic to remind him of what awaited him if the Dragon Queen was not willing to trade for his life. Still, Sandor did not want Mormont bearing witness to whatever was to come. The man had dumb bravery, the kind sung about in songs of fair maidens and noble knights, and Sandor wanted none of it spent on account of him. He had accepted that he would die, so Mormont had to accept those terms as well.

He held no notice of where he was being led or how many turns they took, for he suspected that he would make this walk several more times before he had to be dragged along it. Sunlight peeked out at him from a barred window and he squinted away from it, banging his head on a low-hanging ceiling as he was brought through a doorway and down several steps into a dingy chamber with various vials lining its many shelves. There was a work bench with an assortment of lethal-looking tools, a table with shackles bolted to it and what Sandor recognized to be very old blood stains, and a fine collection of dust that made the place smell like something had died and not been properly disposed of. Last of all was a water trough, filled to spilling point and obviously meant for him.

His only comfort—and if he was quite honest with himself, it was no comfort at all—was knowing that whatever would be done to him day by day, hour after hour in this chamber, it would not kill him. It would be painful, it would be cruel, and he would wish for death after some of these experiments, but Cersei would not allow him to die so quickly, and so no matter what Qyburn did, Sandor would still be breathing at the end of the session—or Qyburn would not be.

"The Queen has given me liberty to test out some past failed experiments on prisoners who did not have the durability I am hoping you have," said Qyburn. "For this particular trial, I am curious as to how efficient a man's lung capacity is in a calm environment as well as a stressful one. My instructions to you, ser, are to try and be calm."

"Call me 'ser' again and we'll see how calm you are when I smash your skull in with this trough."

"I will require him to remain as still as possible, so three should be enough," said Qyburn.

It was here that Sandor realized that more than just the Queensguard had squeezed into the room with them, but a gathering of Lannister soldiers as well. The entirety of the Queensguard were in attendance: every one of them knights, cunts the lot of them. Ser Arys Oakheart, Ser Boros Blount, Ser Osmund Kettleblack, Ser Balon Swann, Ser Preston Greenfield. And Gregor. Five men and one monster to carry out Cersei's orders.

The bitch herself slid out of the shadows like they were loathe to detach themselves from her and Gregor stood dutifully beside her as she looked upon Sandor with that self-servicing smirk he hated so much.

"You may begin," she told Qyburn.

At the Hand's command, Oakheart, Blount, and Kettleblack, the largest and strongest of the Queensguard besides Gregor moved Sandor in front of the trough and bent him double over it with just the tips of his hair touching the water.

"Remember, try to remain calm and _still_," instructed Qyburn.

"Fuck you," spat Sandor.

He opened his air passages to take in as much of it as he could before one of the Queensguard secured a firm hold on the back of his scalp and pushed his entire head into the trough. The water pierced right through his skin, closing off his lungs with the intensity of its shiver-inducing temperature. Despite his burning desire to stab the prick with one of his own torturous tools, Sandor took Qyburn's suggestion to heart. He forced himself to remain calm even with the knowledge that he would remain submerged for an indefinite amount of time. But even if he managed to keep his wits about him, he would have to go through this sadistic ritual gods knew how many times before Cersei would call for a halt in the proceedings for the day. It was not a matter of fighting through a series of tests with the physical and mental aptitude of a seasoned warrior; everything in store for him was meant to torment him, not prove his worth. He could not win, for to live meant to survive today for tomorrow's pain.

They pulled him out before he even started to show signs of distress but he still swallowed as many mouthfuls of air he could get, knowing it wouldn't last and he would be forced into the drink again in mere moments.

"Impressive," said Qyburn, examining a miniature hourglass and recording its details. "Let us try another, exactly the same."

So they did and this time, Sandor's lungs were only half full, still in shock from his previous submersion. He didn't count how long he was being held under, for counting would make it all the more unbearable, but he knew Qyburn wanted to see if he could hold out for longer than last time, so he deliberately tried to sabotage himself by wriggling about, only the Queensguard held him fast, giving him almost no option to move at all.

Upon surfacing this time, Sandor saw Mormont watching him intently, hands clasped before his mouth as if in prayer, but Sandor knew it to be in anticipation of how much longer he would have to watch this water torture unfold.

"Now we shall try sudden exposure with no time for preparation. Ser Boros…"

Whirled around to face Blount, Sandor took a double punch to the gut and then was thrown forward into the trough once again. He had no air to begin with, having been robbed of it when he took the hits to the stomach. The water tore at his skin, stealing any breath he might have had left and for the first time, he opened his mouth to shout out in the form of a stream of insistent bubbles.

He was pulled out, this time to be greeted by a torch being held close enough to have lit his hair on fire if it hadn't been sopping wet and he let out a terrified cry of alarm before Oakheart smashed his face so strongly against the water that Sandor felt his skin bruise on impact.

A silent promise to himself to never take a sip of water again passed through Sandor's mind. He wanted air, wanted never to feel any moisture for as long as he lived, and his wishes went unfulfilled.

He lost count after the eighth time, focusing every bit of his being on blocking out the water for as long as humanely possible. Sometimes it was but a few moments, others it was a half a minute, one, almost two, of underwater agony. On one of the longer submersions, he had no more control over his limbs which were twitching and jerking about like he had been turned into a puppet operated remotely by strings.

_A dance of death._

He felt something knock against his hip, felt someone release their hold on him, and he didn't wait. He fought for the surface, resisting the grip of the two sets of hands that still held him and by some miracle, he was pulled out by the hair. His lungs were on fire, ready to burst with the effort of keeping him alive for the past minute on desperation alone. He gasped greedily for air, blinking the stinging water out of his eyes to see Mormont slumped between Swann and Greenfield with a nasty-looking knock to his head. He had tried to come to Sandor's aid again; there was no other explanation for it, and Qyburn was having words with whichever whoreson had delivered the blow.

He knew that he would be put under again and that he physically could not stand to go another round, so he self-induced a fit of vomiting, throwing up every droplet that had passed through his system. He decorated the chamber floor and the Queensguard dropped him where he lay in his own regurgitation.

"We will resume this tomorrow," said Cersei, and Sandor had never heard sweeter words.

Sandor had no sense of time or space, his feet kept stumbling over each other, resulting in the Queensguard having to more or less drag him back to the blissful nothingness of the Black Cells where they chained him back in place, taking care to replace the neck brace. Mormont was brought in some half hour later with a bandage wrapped around the bleeding bump on his forehead.

They were left with a plate of bread and cheese apiece and a waterskin to share, but Sandor wanted nothing to do with either. He had been feeling the effect of no food when they came for him this morning, but it was a good job they hadn't fed him, for all of it would have come up during his near-drowning. Now, however, he had no stomach for any of it and judging by the silence on Mormont's end, neither was he.

Sandor searched about with his heel and found Mormont's foot, then kicked the knight.

"What'd you get in the way for, you dumb shit?"

"I didn't," said Mormont with a groan. "I knocked a shelf over on Ser Arys and then Ser Preston struck me."

"They weren't going to kill me, you dolt."

"Who is to say how long a man can hold his breath? You had been submerged for too long and too many times already. You'll forgive me if I took your thrashing as a sign that you were seconds away from drowning."

"If it gets to that point where they're going to go far enough to finish me off, let them do it. I would rather die by accident than have to suffer more of the same."

"It's only the first day. You mean to tell me that you're ready to give in already?"

"Fuck you, Mormont. I still can't breathe properly after that _first day_ and that would be enough for most men to beg for mercy. I tell you again, if they go far enough to inadvertently kill me, let them. I plan to fight them for every breath I may yet draw, but I'm not stupid enough to wish for life if it means a slow death. If I'm that far gone, fucking let me go and let that be the end of it."

"I won't—"

"You don't get a choice. This is my life, damn you, and you have no say in it, so if you don't like it, you can bloody well go fuck yourself."

He heard no more of it, though that may have been because Mormont's head ached too badly to continue arguing. It was well on into the night by Sandor's reckoning that he was able to eat his meal, which he scarfed down far too quickly, leaving his belly grumbling for more. Several times throughout the evening he leaned as far away from where he had made his bed amidst the straw and mold to vomit up more water and he fell into slumber chilled, not from the dampness of the cells, but an entirely mental image of ice water filling his lungs…

/ /

Every day was a new terror. Mormont was a witness to all of it, but he did not interfere again. When they returned to their cell, he would talk just for the sake of talking, giving Sandor something to cling to other than silence. He told stories of how he had come to find the Targaryen woman when she was yet a girl with no dragons. He spoke of his journey to knighthood. He regaled Sandor with great detailed images of his home, Bear Island, and Sandor was desperate for a glimpse of the place, for something other than this fucking cell and Qyburn's chambers. His resolve was waning, and he knew Cersei could see he was crumbling piece by agonizing piece.

Six days of pure horror, one day of rest, and on that day, he was given a larger meal that he could not stomach in dread for what was to come next.

Qyburn flayed him, not to the scale that Bolton's were notorious for, but enough to be worthy of the name. Small portions of skin were removed from his underarm, the back of his thigh, the padding of his foot, and when the skin grew back, it formed a darker patch that was sensitive to the touch. He was dangled upside down until the rush of blood to his head knocked him out cold. In a wild display of imagination, he was tied by the neck to a long line of rope to a horse's saddle and then the horse was made to sprint the length of the throne room several times with Sandor letting the rope cut through the skin of his hands to avoid having it close around his throat.

He feared to sleep, for when he did, he knew he would wake to find a torch being pressed in close to his face. It was such a monumental fear that he tried to stay awake through the night, finding himself exhausted as he saw the torch coming for him from far away so that he could not be sure if he was dreaming or not. He would fight off sleep for two days and give in on the third, succumbing to exhaustion of the body and mind and though he said nothing to Mormont about it, the man started to take watch with him, kicking him awake when Qyburn would come and Sandor could prepare himself to not be forced against the firelight.

But even then, Sandor knew he was beginning to break. He ate every last crumb brought to him, but his breeches were fitting loosely on him. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the Hand's looking glass and found his face to look gaunt and malnourished, unruly and unkempt. The face that looked back at him belonged to a dog, a wild animal.

_If the gods are real, why haven't they punished me? _he had once asked Brother Ray.

_ They have._

Not enough, apparently. His days bordering on the brink of death after the girl left him for dead were some of his worst, but he would relive those days a hundred times over if it meant he would never again have to face a torch in his face upon waking. He would live in that time of fever and uncertainty forever, clinging only to hate and a faint memory of a young woman's kindness, if he never had to take that walk back up the steps to Qyburn's laboratory.

He no longer had dreams of fucking the little bird. Not the taste of her or the touch of her or what he imagined it might feel like to be inside of her. He dreamt only of the godswood with his hand around her waist as both of them watched the dragons take to the skies high above in dizzying patterns of black, red, green, and gold. His dreams revolved around remembering every possible detail to this woman he wanted, but he did not long for her body in such a way any longer. He could not waste what remaining hours of his life he had left wistfully thinking of how he might have fucked her. Instead, he wanted only to hear her speak to him one last time and hear the truth behind it: that she wanted him to stay with her.

In his new dreams, he would, when she asked. When she begged him to stay, to forget Gregor and cast aside the very thing that had given his life purpose since he had seen his sister murdered in front of him, he did. He stood by her as she watched Cersei's execution, as she swore fealty to the Dragon Queen, as she rode home—their home. He was at her side, whole, alive, and _feeling _alive. But only in his dreams.

/ /

What little sense of the passing time he still possessed after spending so much of it in a lightless cell told him that it had been nearly three weeks of repetitive fuckery and if the discontented look Cersei had given him after having Qyburn pour water over his face as he lay flat and bound for six hours was any indication, she was only just beginning to exact her revenge on him.

On one morning during which Sandor had kept watch for the damned torch, he saw that it was not Qyburn coming for him, but Lannister soldiers. There was a matter of great importance at hand, for Sandor and Mormont were both taken to the Hand's quarters, shoved onto stools, and groomed, though none too gently. Their overgrown beards were trimmed, their pale faces powdered with much more of the shite added to Sandor's face to hide his bruises. New clothing was laid out for them and they dressed at spearpoint in outerwear that concealed Sandor's shrunken waistline and Mormont's hunched shoulders, for the knight had fallen ill during their term of imprisonment and Qyburn had had to relocate him to a dryer environment for three nights to ensure that it was not the pox or the plague. Those three nights in solitude were some of the worst Sandor remembered. He found himself waking and calling out to the knight who was not there and in doing so, he felt a cry of despair building in his gut. Mormont's presence was a crutch for him and without it, facing the nights alone, facing the overwhelming darkness alone, was nigh on impossible. He was against having the man in his company from the start, but had grown dependent on it as the only form of human kindness he could interact with when he was tossed aside like a beaten dog. A sense of hopelessness had settled over him by the time they brought Mormont back, though Sandor would never admit to relying on the knight's presence to his face.

When they had been properly made presentable for an audience with someone they had yet to meet, they were placed under twice the number of shackles, bound with their arms behind them, gagged, and hooded more for the benefit of whoever they were going to see rather than themselves. Their appearances were to be a grand reveal to go to the trouble of making them appear well taken care of. They traveled what felt like the circumference of the city several times over and though Sandor was grateful for the chance to stretch his legs, he suffered plenty of discomfort along the way from the hood that chafed at his raw neck skin from where the rope had cut into it.

The general din of city life was not quite muted through the hood, but the guards must have been taking them down less populated alleyways to avoid drawing a crowd, a crowd that seized at a chance to pelt any poor bastard with fruit and feces if possible. Finally, his knees knocked against stone steps and he was forced to climb still blindfolded, but was yanked to a halt not quite at the top. From above him, he heard Cersei speaking to someone, but the way her voice carried suggested that her audience was far below her.

"I have something which belongs to you."

Sandor climbed the remaining few steps, knowing what he was about to see and feeling emasculated that he would be presented as if he were an object of price. His knees were kicked from under him and his hood was pulled off, exposing him blindingly to the early afternoon sun. It took several painful moments of blinking to bring the world into focus but when he did, he almost would rather have remained with his head under the hood.

Just before him was a chopping block, still stained with the blood from its last victim and Mormont had a similar one on display in front of him. Below them at the edge of the woods that decorated the one side of the city not water-locked, was the war council. Forty or so Unsullied formed the parlay escort, headed by the Dragon Queen, Jon Snow, the Imp, Lord Varys, the onion knight, and the little bird. He could not see as well as he would have liked, but he could see the terror grip her as she realized what Cersei had brought her. She took half a step forward and like a born and bred sworn shield, her sellsword stepped with her but Snow said something in her ear to halt her.

It had been Sandor's understanding that when he saw her waving farewell to him in the courtyard of Winterfell, he was looking his last upon her, but his own stupidity had led him to this moment where now Cersei was going to barter for a favorable deal with Sandor and Mormont as her bargaining chips and Sandor had to witness the little bird teeter on the verge of complete abandon.

"By a lucky or perhaps not so lucky turn of events, Sandor Clegane and Ser Jorah Mormont find themselves prisoners of the crown," announced Cersei. "It was unfortunate that I was not able to capture all three of their little party, but your fortune does hold out, Lady Stark, or is it Lady Bolton now?"

This was where Sandor's fib that the little bird and not the sister was his second companion might come back around to take a sizable chunk out of his arse. He hoped that Cersei would ask no more about the subject and that the little bird would play the part, but she did not know how to lie convincingly to the woman who had learned to read her as well as Sandor ever could.

_Play along, girl. For your sake and your sister's, play along._

"However, their crimes may be forgiven and I am confident that we can come to some sort of agreement for them if your rebellious group of upstarts are open to negotiations. What are you willing to give for their lives?"

"What are you hoping to achieve?" countered the Dragon Queen and Sandor saw that she, too, was summoning every ounce of self-control to not call out to Mormont.

"Unconditional surrender."

"You knew coming into this that we would never agree to lay down our arms for the lives of two of our own," said Jon Snow, though by the looks of the Dragon Queen and the little bird, they were almost willing to do just that.

"I expected as much, as you must have expected what is to happen next," said Cersei with a careless wave of her hand to Gregor who stood behind her.

Sandor's head was pressed down onto the block before him. Even to him, it seemed rash and hardly strategic to ask the Dragon Queen for surrender and then behead the prisoners just to spite her. Murdering Mormont would ensure that the Targaryen woman released her wrath upon the city without Cersei ever having a hope to escape. But Sandor had no such use to either woman.

He heard it before he saw it and it was enough to make him abandon his resolution to remain calm, dissolving into sheer, bloody panic. He tried to drop and roll away from the steaming hot iron that a Queensguard bore behind him but Gregor had anticipated his move and his enormous hand on the back of Sandor's neck rooted him in place, promising to crush his skull if he dared to make a run for it. White-hot, searing pain in the small of his back and suddenly he was a child again, screaming for his dead mother as his brother held his face in the coals. The agony, the fear that the pain would never go away after this and that the rest of his life would be lived with the feel of fire on his skin, it all resurfaced as the iron branded him a traitor, a prisoner, and a failure. And as it had been the first time, Gregor was the one to force him to submit to the fire, the one to watch him writhe, the one to listen to him scream.

Oh, and how he screamed, screamed through his gag long after the iron had been removed, but even louder than his noise was the frightened begging coming from across the way. The little bird had to be restrained by her brother and the sellsword and Sandor was thrown into another unpleasant memory, this time of a girl half naked on the floor beneath the Iron Throne. A helpless ninny of a girl who knew how to recite pretty words with blank stares and cry and little else. A harmless, beautiful, stupid girl who sobbed for her own life even as Sandor threw his white cloak about her small shoulders to spare her any more humiliation. A girl grown now shouting at Cersei to release him because she had the power to save him…but couldn't.

_Shut up, girl. You're giving her every instrument she needs to break you._

"She cries for you, Sandor. What exists between the two of you that didn't before? I know how you desired her when you served my house. Quite frankly, I was properly surprised come the morning after the Battle of Blackwater Bay that you hadn't taken her for yourself. But you found your way back to her, didn't you?" She raised her voice to address the little bird. "The Lannisters bred and raised this dog, but he found a new master, didn't he, Sansa Stark? He turned his teeth on those who fed him and protected him for a bitch, as all dogs will when they have a mind to mount that bitch. My only question is if he had to drag you into bed or if you willingly spread your legs for him but in either case, I am at a loss as to why you should feel any inclination to save this mongrel."

If Cersei already believed that Sandor had fucked the girl, he could use that…

Finally mouthing his gag off, Sandor watched the little bird's fear mutate into the type of hatred only a woman could have for another woman. He had seen but a sample of her willingness to commit murder when he stopped her from pushing Joffrey off of the balcony, spun her around, and dabbed the blood from her lip. She was still of a mind to do what she had planned, though she seemed confused that he had stopped her and comforted her. She had been a child at the time, but six long, brutal years had shaped her into a killer, even if she was not the one to wield the sword. She had wanted Cersei dead before to avenge her family, but now…she wanted the woman dead because of what had just been done to Sandor.

The she-wolf was protecting her pack.

"Because she's a stupid bitch," said Sandor, tasting bile with every word he spat out. The little bird would not believe a word of it, but he was hoping that everyone else would. He relied on it. "As empty-headed and worthless as the day she came to King's Landing and as satisfying as a whore. Her cunt wasn't worth the trouble I went to to get it. And believe you me, she's not going to give up claim to the North for my cock."

Cersei only half-believed him and he knew he would have to be absolutely relentless as he cut the little bird down for all to hear. He had acted so determined to protect her identity from Cersei, which revealed that she meant something to him, so if he spoke ill of her now, Cersei had to buy it with no doubts. He would have to make everyone in attendance believe that he was worth nothing to her and that she only called out to him now because she was a stupid girl with the same dreams of nobility and honor she had had when she had last been a resident here.

"You name her a bitch, yet I had to pull several nails before you gave up her name," observed Cersei.

"Aye, because whatever happened between us, it didn't relieve me of the vows I finally took when I became her sworn shield," said Sandor, projecting his voice so loudly that it hurt his underused chords. Snow would hate him for this, the Dragon Queen would despise him, but he needed Cersei to believe him above all else, so he found the little bird below and willed her to read him and read the apology he was projecting.

_Don't let words wound you, girl, especially mine._

"I swore an oath to the old gods and even fucking her wouldn't relieve me of those duties. I had to do something right by the Stark family, and taking those vows was my only option, so I did, but not before I had her and I can tell you, it wasn't worth the wait. A fleeting moment between two people about to die against the army of the dead. After I had her, I didn't want a second taste, but she liked me well enough, so she kept me on, came with me when I told her what business I had in King's Landing. And when I wouldn't give you her name, it was because she needed time to make a run for it and get out of the city to wait for reinforcements. Now, here they are, and there she is, and I'm relieved of my vows."

"Be that as it may," said Cersei in apparent awe at his audacity, "Your riddance of her does not mirror her feelings toward you."

"Just because she got properly fucked doesn't mean she's changed. Still a girl holding out for her valiant knight, which she thinks is me. She's smitten and nothing more, but she won't give you anything you want or need to pull me back into her bed. You're wasting your time if that was your end game. So instead of branding me, fucking have my head and be done with it."

Stepping closer for only Sandor to hear, Cersei rested her hand on his forearm. "If she refuses my terms, I still made you a promise, Sandor Clegane, and that was to listen to your screams as you beg me to give the order that will end your life."

A double-edged sword if there ever was one. Cersei would not have him beheaded here for the little bird to see, but she would subject him to that which would be sure to break him when already his cracks were beginning to show.

"And you, Daenerys Targaryen, what would you give for your knight?" asked Cersei, now turning away from Sandor.

Gregor shoved Mormont's head down onto the neighboring block and Sandor heard Mormont grunt in pain as the iron with strips of Sandor's flesh still clinging to it was brought back in, sizzling once again. The knight gritted his teeth through the gag, his body jerking under Gregor's grasp, though he was not nearly as panicked as Sandor had been because he did not fear fire.

"I do not barter with murderers and usurpers over what is already mine," called the Dragon Queen. "You will return Ser Jorah to me or I will take him back as I will take this kingdom: with fire and blood."

"That was the answer I expected, so strong-willed and confident and yet so very wrong," said Cersei, almost sounding gleeful in the Targaryen's response.

Gregor added his other hand to Mormont's head on the block as Blount pulled up the back of the knight's tunic and branded him, burning the mark of Lannister cattle and swine into his skin. The Dragon Queen did not have to be restrained as the little bird did, but she was visibly distraught as she listened to her knight cry out through his gag.

The Imp came forward now, perhaps to appeal to whatever sense of humanity his sister had left, but he was a fool akin to a man three times his size if he thought he could reason with a woman without limits to her cruelty. "You mutilate your prisoners under formal parlay, these men who we claim as our own, and you expect us to adhere to your commands? Are there no depths to which you won't sink, sister? You didn't call us here to trade these men; you never had any intention to trade them. You wanted to see our reactions to your treatment of them. Well, congratulations, you've seen, you know we want them back, you know we won't surrender. Where do we go from here?"

"Abandon your allegiance to Daenerys Targaryen," said Cersei. "Your people may live in freedom under my rule. I will only take action against the leaders and conspirators who sought to overthrow me. A small price to pay for the lives of so many on both sides. I demand the sacrificial surrender of all who stand present as well as my brother, Ser Jaime."

She was completely mad, a scorned bitch with nothing left to hide behind and no mercy remaining in her reserves, but it was no surprise to Sandor. Of course she was mad; she was willing to sacrifice the lives of every single soul in the city for herself. Now, she wanted to see her enemies hurt by striking them where they were most vulnerable, with their allies, their friends.

"Think of your knight before you act, young queen-who-would-be. If you set your armies and your dragons upon King's Landing, Ser Jorah will be crucified and displayed above this very gate and then I will have bits of him delivered to you one at a time. If you surrender, no harm shall come to him and he may live out the rest of his days in exile. If you do nothing, if you take your armies and your dragons and leave Westeros, he will remain in his cell beneath the Red Keep until he dies, of natural causes or otherwise. I will await your answer by envoy by tomorrow's eve."

Cersei had Gregor pull Sandor up by the hair and hold his upper body out over the wall, giving Sandor a view of the ground several dozen feet below. All his brother had to do was let go and Sandor need not worry about Cersei's promise. The little bird had gone silent, no doubt watching and waiting with bated breath.

_Say nothing, girl, don't you say a fucking word_.

"I offer you these terms, Sansa Stark, a one-time proposition," said Cersei. "A trade of traitors: Sandor Clegane for Bronn of the Blackwater."


	19. Chapter 19: Nothing to Give

**SANSA**

She had dreamed of his lips on hers, of her leg wrapped around him and his fingers working deftly to pull off her clothes—and she had let him continue. She had grasped at him, digging her fingernails into the skin at the base of his scalp to pull him closer to her, begging him to remove the clothing barrier between them.

And then she had woken, slipping her fingers experimentally, curiously to the soft curls between her legs, finding them incredibly damp. What a sensation, what an invigorating, stirring sensation. After Ramsay, she didn't dare to hope to harbor any sort of favorable feeling toward men, having never experienced arousal before and not knowing what the fuss was about. But she had sampled it, and if she—who had been so hurt by other men that she could not fathom _being _with one ever again—had felt this with _any _man at all, it could not be so wrong, could it?

_Most women don't know what they like until they've tried it. _Years later, she knew that Margaery Tyrell was no virgin when she entered into the courtship with Joffrey, but that her words of wisdom to Sansa were full of experience and even if she did not have experience, she was right about women not knowing what they liked beforehand but being certain of it once they had experienced it.

And Sansa _had _tried it—tried him, tried the smallest bit of him that her painful memories had allowed, and she had nothing to measure him to in the way of a proper lover, but she had felt like a woman with the Hound and he had treated her like one, carefully when needed, passionately when desired.

So consumed was she in how she might experience those wonderful feelings again that she was able, for the first time, to consider Bronn's reassurances that the Hound would return to her. With Ser Jorah and Arya, the Hound would complete his purpose and come back to her and if he was willing to be patient with her, if he was willing to accept that she would not be able to give in to him as quickly as he liked, there might exist something more between them.

A day's march from the capital saw her, Daenerys, Jon, and the rest of the war council going over final preparations for the siege when there was news of a rider traveling under the flag of parlay, which brought their meeting to a halt as they hid their maps and markers to let the messenger approach. The Unsullied guards who stood outside the tent pushed the envoy inside and the man held forth a scroll with the unbroken seal of Cersei Lannister. Jon accepted the scroll and tore off the seal, eyes scanning quickly across the written lines before he gave a great sigh of what appeared to be remorse and handed the scroll to Daenerys. She, too, read the scroll at top speed, her eyes a lavender blur, but when she reached the end, she drew in a quick breath and clutched the table. Now disturbed at this troubling news before she even had a chance to read the scroll, Sansa held out her hand for it, but Daenerys only looked to her with terror, joined in expression by Jon.

"What is it?" asked Sansa, dreading the answer.

"Sansa," said Jon warily.

"Jon, what is it?"

Judging by the way his face had contorted into a mixture of pain on her behalf and resignation, Sansa knew before he could answer.

She did not sleep that night, nor the night after. Daenerys had agreed to meet with Cersei to discuss terms of trade for the lives of Ser Jorah Mormont and Sandor Clegane. The news was akin to a bucket of ice water being poured down Sansa's back. It was her worst fear turned reality, proof that she knew Cersei better than the Hound did, and she knew what Cersei would do to him if Sansa could not come to terms for his life. She had no idea how long he had been her hostage or how he had been treated. Knowing Cersei, the Hound had already been subjected to the same sort of sport Joffrey had notoriously been known for, for the boy king had inherited his mother's sadistic tendencies. And Arya, for whom there was no mention, was unaccounted for on all fronts. Had she been killed when they were taken prisoner? Had she escaped?

Sansa paced her tent well on into the morning as they made their last tear-down of camp, putting an unwise amount of pressure on her bad leg. She fidgeted in her carriage during the day's journey and resumed her pacing that night as her tent was set up for an extended stay. She was unprepared to see the result of her negligence come the morrow. Had she been more vigilant in her attempts to make the Hound see reason, he might never have put himself in this situation. She should have dealt with his anger and had her guards lock him in chains when he tried to ride out the gates of Winterfell. She should have done _anything_.

"Your brother to see you, m'lady," announced Bronn, opening her tent flap to allow Jon inside. Sansa had not spoken with him since they received Cersei's summons, for she had excused herself from the council, not trusting herself to keep a level head in the presence of those with wagging tongues. Now, however, she knew why Jon had come to her, and she was in no mood to listen to his dire warnings about how she should compose herself during the negotiations to take place the following afternoon.

Jon went to her, taking both her hands and squeezing meaningfully. "Whatever you see tomorrow, whatever she's done to him, you must remember that she doesn't know your affiliation with him. For all she knows, Clegane is just a man who serves Daenerys, so she'll be looking to Daenerys to make the trade, not you. If you show her weakness, you'll put him at risk—"

"You don't have to explain to me that Cersei preys on weakness," said Sansa loftily. "You don't know her like I do. I know her better than anyone, and I know what she'll have had done to him."

"You know, then, that she'll demand the North and your head for his life."

"She'll receive neither. Are you worried that I'll hand over our home and our people in a neat bundle to her for his life and Ser Jorah's? I thought you saw more in me than that."

"I do, but I also know the desperate things people do to save the ones they care about. I almost lost the North completely when I rode out to save Rickon. I failed to save our little brother and I failed to defeat Ramsay's army on my own with my own men before you arrived with the Knights of the Vale. That need, that desire to protect our own is what makes us Starks more vulnerable than others. We rely on our pack and will do stupid things for them, but all I ask of you now is that you remember those stupid things both of us have done when you're given the choice tomorrow to save him or yourself. What do you think he would have you do?"

"That is something I may never know, if she will not give him back for what I offer in exchange for him."

She knew there was truth to Jon's words, that she needed to guard her heart from Cersei and show no signs that the Hound was valuable to her, but that determination was shattered almost instantly when she saw him the following afternoon.

Cersei had not engaged in a lengthy preamble before presenting her prisoners and when she had, Sansa grasped at the closest thing to anchor herself in the present, in the moment that depended on her ability to remain civil when she wanted nothing more than to run to him. She found Daenerys's hand and the queen squeezed back, her fingers cold and shivering as she looked across the way at her knight, Ser Jorah. Exchanging fearful glances, Sansa and Daenerys held on, for the men who would surely die if they could not appease Cersei.

The gods had blessed Sansa with keen eyesight, able to pick out remote details that would be lost to others. She could see him now, in only a faded green tunic and thin breeches where he had worn heavy leather, padded pants, and a cloak before. He looked small, bound and gagged in such a fashion with a criminal's garb and nothing more. His eyes found her, even if he could not make out the details on her face, and she knew he was willing her to read his expression.

_Don't do something stupid_.

He was beaten down, his head hung forward, his shoulders carried the weight of a tortured man's burden, but he was still instructing her how to stay alive. It took every bit of willpower to not run to the base of the outer bailey and call out to him, to hear his voice, but Jon took her arm and reminded her of their talk the night prior, of how her actions could harm him as much as her inaction could.

Cersei named Sansa as the third member to the Hound's traveling troupe and though Sansa hadn't the faintest idea what she was on about, the slight to her name gave her more cause to be upset. She never was Lady Bolton, still wed to Tyrion with her marriage very much legally binding when Ramsay had taken her as his wife. Even now, she would rather be a Lannister than a Bolton, but Tyrion had admitted that he saw their marriage as annulled after the destruction of the sept in which they were wed, so she remained Sansa Stark. She voiced none of this to Cersei, not trusting herself to speak and instead looking to the Hound to see if he was trying to give her another clue as to why he had given Cersei her name instead of Arya's.

Arya, who was not presented now, who Cersei didn't know about. No one but those who had fought the dead knew Arya Stark was alive, and if Cersei made no mention of her, she _had _to still be alive. The Hound would have seen to it, made sure that of the three of them, Arya would be the one to escape, to find her way back to Sansa and find a way to free him and Ser Jorah.

As Sansa suspected, Cersei demanded everything to Daenerys's name, her armies, her dragons, her titles, and her head, and Jon refused for the queen, resulting in a sadistic response from Cersei. For one heart-wrenching moment, Sansa believed that Cersei meant to decapitate the Hound and let his head fall to the foot of the gate to be collected by the queen it was believed he served, but that would be too quick a death and Cersei did not deal in quick mercy.

Sansa saw a glowing white-orange iron tip before the Hound probably even knew it was there but absolute fear of something made one hyper aware to it and even if he couldn't see it, he could sense it. He tried to throw one of the Queensguard from him but Ser Gregor clenched a gargantuan gloved fist over his little brother's head and shoved it down onto the block, holding him there even as the Hound shouted and fought to escape what he knew was coming. When the iron came into contact with his body, the scream born from his throat broke the restraint Sansa had been clutching onto.

"Leave him be!" she cried, releasing Daenerys and feeling blood rush to her bad leg, enough to fuel her forward without a limp.

He was writhing now, his legs dancing to a terrified beat behind him as Ser Gregor kept his head cemented to the block. The smoke from his burning skin was visible even from where Sansa stood. Cersei knew the one thing that would hurt him the most and reduce him to a sobbing boy, and she was utilizing that knowledge to hurt both him and Sansa.

"Stop it! Leave him—"

Sansa started running with no plan other than to make Cersei withdraw the iron. She didn't consider the dozens of archers atop the wall with their arrows nocked or the full compliment of Lannister soldiers with their hands upon their sword hilts. There was only the Hound, the block, and the iron, and Sansa had to pull it away from him.

Jon caught her around the waist. "If you try to help him, she'll kill him right here and now."

"She's going to kill him anyway, let me go."

"You'll make it worse for him if you go to him now," said Daenerys and her words alone reached Sansa. The queen may not have loved her knight how she loved Jon, but she was in the same position as Sansa, knew her pain better than anyone, and understood how difficult it was to watch her friend kneel to Cersei's mercy. "Ser Bronn, see to your lady."

Bronn took over for Jon, securing Sansa's arms at her sides and attempting to move her backward.

Then she heard words, awful, spiteful, hurtful words. A bitch he called her, no better than a whore. A stupid girl. He belittled her before Cersei, claiming to have fucked her the night of the Great Battle. He assured Cersei that he wanted nothing more to do with her after he had been inside of her and that she now only cried for him because she was a half-witted girl who held an infatuation with him on the belief that he was an honorable man.

His words shocked Sansa's companions. Jon's expression promised to speak more on the matter with her later. Daenerys appeared hurt on her behalf to have such vindictive things said about her. Tyrion looked shamed, Lord Varys resigned, but she was only interested in the expression on Bronn's face. A locked jaw, a twitching eye, a soft snort. He knew the Hound as well as anyone could know such a private man, but he had spent the most time with him apart from Sansa. He plainly spoke out about what he had seen between the two of them, he alone knew why Sansa hurt in the wake of the Hound's departure. And he didn't believe a damn word from the Hound's mouth. And neither did Sansa.

Wonderful, bull-headed, infuriating, brilliant man that he was, even now the Hound was doing what he could to protect her because her own stupidity in rushing forward to attempt a rescue just now had given Cersei a valuable weapon to use against her. But the Hound had undone that mistake in casting her aside for all to hear. They all could believe what they liked, but it was only imperative that Cersei believe it.

She saw him looking at her again, eyebrows scrunched in revulsion at his own words. He could only apologize with the tired muscles on his face, but she saw the apology there all the same and accepted it, wanting him to know that she was not hurt by his words, wanting to tell him that she praised him for his quick action.

_Even when faced with that which you fear most, you are still looking to me, for my safety, my brave Hound._

Ser Jorah was branded as Daenerys refused to accept Cersei's terms and the knight looked so pitifully tiny, his head engulfed by Ser Gregor's hand as it held him down to take the iron to his flesh. Daenerys was shaking with unmatched rage as she watched her knight and Sansa knew that there needed to be a serious revision in her own heart as to how she had regarded this woman. Jon may be her lover, but there had first been love for Ser Jorah long before Jon and if she were to lose him now, Cersei would see just what sort of rage a Targaryen was capable of. The queen was straining to leash her anger and Sansa felt a moment of bonding between the wolf and the dragon. Both of them had no greater desire than to see Cersei hurt for the way she mocked them now with the lives of the men she held prisoner. It would be a race to the finish to see which of them got to her first.

Several miles inland at the vast camp of Unsullied, Dothraki, and Northerners, Sansa heard the dragons roaring their displeasure, fueled by the emotions they sensed from their mother. She need only say the word and King's Landing would go up in flames…all for her devotion to Ser Jorah.

If only Sansa had that sort of power to lay waste to nations for the sake of the one man who meant as much to her…

Ser Gregor then took the Hound by the hair and dangled him over the edge of the parapets.

_Careful, _Sansa warned herself. _Tread carefully in what you say and do next._

"I offer you these terms, Sansa Stark," said Cersei, and Sansa's heart pounded in her chest in anticipation of what Cersei could ask of her. Might she ask for something other than everything to Sansa's name, everything she had? Could Sansa possibly possess something that she would willingly give for the man atop the wall? "A one-time proposition. A trade of traitors: Sandor Clegane for Bronn of the Blackwater."

With his hands still on Sansa as a precaution, Bronn froze. He looked to Sansa, then the Unsullied, then Cersei and Sansa knew what was going through his mind at the lightning-quick thinking that had made him a successful sellsword. She had every reason to hand him over to Cersei in exchange for the Hound. Bronn knew he stood no chance in comparison to which man meant more to her, but to his credit, he did not run. He kept hold of her, perhaps to use her for leverage if she agreed to Cersei's terms. A knife to her throat and he could make off with her as his own human shield to get away.

But he didn't because she couldn't. She wouldn't.

"You have allied yourself with men who have done my house and my family a personal wrong. Sandor Clegane forsook his place at my son's side and Ser Bronn betrayed me on more than one occasion, his latest slight being when he traveled north to put an end to my treacherous brothers and instead finds himself serving the Starks. I can assure you, he will abandon you when he finds a better price for leaving your service or killing you. So will you trade the life of the man you lay with for the man who stands beside you?"

The Hound was watching her, but he was unreadable as the day she met him, deliberately devoid of emotion, leaving her nothing to deduce. This was her decision and he would have no influence on her. A selfish man, a man who wanted to live would want her to make the trade, but he would not beg to the likes of Cersei. He refused to let anyone see him reduced to such a human thing as pleading.

Sansa turned her head to face Bronn and the sellsword waited for her to give the order to surrender himself, lay down his weapons, release her, and walk to the gates to accept his doom.

"Let go of me," she told him.

His fingers clenched and unclenched around her as he considered what he might do to weasel his way to freedom as he always did. If ever she needed to show him that she believed he had converted and committed to being more than just a hired sword, it was now.

She mimicked Daenerys's words as she called out for Cersei to hear. "I will not barter over that which is already mine."

Words she could not take back now. She laid claim to Sandor Clegane, though what that claim entailed remained up to interpretation. She claimed him for the North, a man of her ancestors' kingdom, and she would have him back.

"Ser Jorah, Sandor Clegane, on my honor as a Stark, I will see you both freed. On the souls of my family, on the souls of Elinor Clegane and Lyanna Mormont, I swear it."

_This is all I can give you._ How she wanted to say more to the Hound, how she _needed_ to speak his name and have him hear her and know that she desired his freedom above nearly all else. _Hold on for me. Whatever she's done to you, endure it for as long as you can until I come for you._

"I will be there to hear you scream when you next see this man, Sansa Stark," Cersei promised. "And when you do, remember that your own pride was what killed him."

She would have gone running if not for the gentle pressure in her palm, Bronn's hand curling into hers to pull her back. It was a gesture of trust, an establishment of understanding that she had not given him up and he would not let her destroy herself here where Cersei could see.

"Not now, m'lady," he said for only her to hear.

Sansa found the Hound one last time, praying, pleading with any and all deities that this was not the last she would see of him while he yet drew breath.

_Don't take him from me,_ she begged. _Don't let her take him from me._

/ /

There would be no escaping the lengthy and uncomfortable conversation her brother had in mind, but Sansa still tried to walk as quickly as her bad leg would let her to return to her tent and get ahead of him. Jon pushed past Bronn who tried to make him wait on the threshold, but once he had made it inside, he saw that the evening meal was being laid out by Sansa's cup bearer and so he held his tongue, waiting for the girl to dismiss herself.

"Ser Bronn, attend me," called Sansa, and Bronn invited himself into the tent, placing himself non-threateningly behind Sansa. It was not that she distrusted Jon, but he might not say the horrible things undoubtedly on his mind if Bronn was present and Sansa would rather not hear those things just now.

When the cup bearer had gone, Jon ran his hands over his face and clutched the table to steady his temper.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

Sansa feigned ignorance to hold off the dreaded question. "Tell you what?"

"Why didn't you tell me what existed between the two of you? Why did you make me have to hear it from Cersei's mouth, listening to her shame you like a whore?"

"She knows nothing about it."

"He touched you. He put his hands on you."

"Often, as you constantly saw."

"Don't play this game with me, Sansa. Did he hurt you?"

"You think I would have promised to see him set free if he had hurt me? You think I would have let him continue to be alone with me if he had hurt me? Jon, he never touched me but for when I asked him to, and it was only ever to assist me with my broken leg."

"The things he called you—"

"Were necessary if Cersei was to believe him."

"You lay with him?" asked Jon through gritted teeth.

"No, I did not, but even if I had, it should be no concern of yours when you lay with Daenerys."

"She is a worthy woman—" began Jon, but Sansa slammed her hands palms-down on the table. She would not stand for Jon to make that comparison when the Hound had earned more respect in serving the Starks than Daenerys ever could. Jon was acting the part of their father and in a grossly unfair manner, for he had accepted the Hound as a friend to the Starks so long as he remained only that, but the moment something more might have existed between him and Sansa, the Hound was suddenly unworthy.

"I'll not hear you call him scum compared to Daenerys because she has noble blood but he shares his with that monster that just burned him. In my last conversation with Father, he promised that he would one day match me with a man who was worthy of me as we prepared to leave King's Landing and return home. He had discovered that Joffrey was not the trueborn heir and a monster at that and he promised me that there would be another man who would be deserving of me. If I had taken Sandor Clegane to bed, he would have been the one man in this miserable world who is deserving of me, but I didn't. I never have and neither has he, but he wanted Cersei to believe it. He said that to protect me because I was stupid enough to take Cersei's bait and call out for him. He wanted her to think that he meant nothing to me so that she could not threaten me with him."

"But he does mean something to you."

"Of course he does. He is my friend—"

"Sansa…"

"No, don't look at me like that. He's my friend, Jon, and I care deeply for him. A friend I've known since I was still a child, perhaps the only one still alive. And now Cersei has him. She'll use him however she can against me and right now, it's by torturing him while I sit here unable to do a damn thing to help him!"

That crushing weight of reality only now registered with her. She had an army of Northerners at her command, she had her ancestral seat to her name, she was a powerful woman, and she could do nothing to rescue him without jeopardizing his already precarious condition.

"If she had threatened to kill him right there in front of you, would you have given her the North?" asked Jon.

"If I there was a way to free him without surrendering ourselves and the North, I would do it. I would do anything short of selling out my own people for him, do you understand?"

"Because he taught you to hold a sword?" asked Jon with no conviction to his jest. "Because you had someone to talk to for a month while snowed in within the castle walls? Sansa, you don't _know_ him."

"You can't lecture me on how well I know a person when you took Daenerys to bed less than two months after meeting her. I have known Sandor Clegane since I was ten-and-three years old and he was all that stood between me and Joffrey for near on two years. I would have many more scars if not for him. We did not have the open conversations then we were able to have in Winterfell, but we had an understanding. And I know him as well as I ever knew anyone because people change in their time apart. I knew you when we were children and I met you again as you were a man and I a woman and think nothing the lesser of you for that period in which we were strangers. You have known Daenerys less than a year and I have known Sandor nearly half of my life and yet _I _am the irrational one here?"

"You wouldn't be tempted to give up your homelands and your people for a man who is just _your friend_," said Jon skeptically.

"Why not? You gave them up for the same reason. The difference here is that I won't because he wouldn't let Cersei make that trade. He wouldn't let me do something so stupid."

"You're saying that for me to bend the knee to Daenerys, I was being stupid?" asked Jon testily.

"I'm saying that you have no place to be judging me, lecturing me, or berating me on his account. He has earned your trust, not your disdain for something he hasn't done. If we had the chance to save him, and we had lay together, would you leave him to Cersei simply because he and I shared a bed?"

"You know I wouldn't."

"Then let us speak no more about it. He never hurt me and he never would. All men have done their share of dishonorable things, but he never forced himself on me or influenced me into accepting his advances. He wanted me, but he knew it wasn't what I wanted, and so he let me be and many men wouldn't have had that sort of restraint."

"For someone who has no desire to take him to bed, you are providing more reasons than you need to show me why he's acceptable," said Jon wryly.

"Because you don't like the idea of him as my friend or my lover and I don't need your permission to take him as either. If I did, it would be far less scandalous than you bedding your own aunt, yet the two of you continue to make love every night. I think that wanting my friend returned to me because he is dear to me is a perfectly adequate reason and more than enough for you."

"You told her?"

Jon jumped as if he had been scorched and Sansa's blood ran cold at the sight of Daenerys standing behind him, her face eerily calm for just discovering that her lover had revealed his true identity to someone extremely capable of using that knowledge to unseat her from the throne that had yet to be won back.

"Dany—"

"I wish to speak to your sister alone," said Daenerys flatly.

"She _is_ my sister, and she deserved the truth," Jon insisted.

"Alone," said Daenerys.

Jon was not a man to forget whom he served and he bowed himself out, but Sansa did not fear for him. Daenerys loved him far too much to punish him for this.

"Before you speak, Your Grace, let me save you the trouble," said Sansa, not having the energy to engage in an oral battle over the rightful heir to the throne when she was far too exhausted after the day's negotiations. "I care not if my brother has a claim to the throne that is greater than yours. He already told me that he has no desire for it and I believe it. He is a leader, a man people respect and look up to, but he belongs on the battlefield, not on a throne. He would serve you well as Lord Commander of the City Watch or even your sworn shield, but he would not seek to take the throne from you and even if I wanted him seated there, I would not force him into it, just as he cannot force me to abandon my resolve to rescue Sandor Clegane."

"Sandor Clegane," repeated Daenerys. "The man is why we find ourselves here, isn't it? I suppose I should be thanking him, then, if his fate is what has you so preoccupied that you cannot even find the energy to spar with me."

"With all due respect, Your Grace, after today's events, you are the only one who has the power to end Cersei before she can carry out her threats and I would see the woman who unseats her sit the throne in her stead. I did not misinterpret your hand in mine when she revealed our men today. I took strength from it, and I am grateful for it, but in one thing I believe Cersei was telling the truth and that is that she will spare Ser Jorah if you surrender. If you leave, he will waste away in the Black Cells and if you attack, she will have him killed. But she gave me the one chance to save Sandor Clegane, promising to have him killed otherwise regardless of what I do, and I did not take that chance. She gave me her word that the next time I saw him, it would be his mangled body."

Daenerys approached Sansa and reached out to caress her shoulder. "To see the ones we love in pain—"

"I don't—"

"You do, Sansa Stark. No one but someone with the utmost, deepest affection for another would scream like you just did. You care for that man more than you care about your revenge against Cersei because you let her see you break for him."

"_The more people you love, the weaker you are. You'll do things for them that you know you shouldn't do."_

Words from the lioness's own mouth that her weakness would be her undoing, which was how she found herself a prisoner of the crown to begin with. Her stupid, childish love for Joffrey had caused her to betray her father. Her love for her father had led to his own execution. To love was to kill those who earned that affection, however slowly.

"You and I both forgot about thrones and politics and war today when we saw our loved ones put to the iron. I would have burned the city in that instant to punish Cersei if she had killed Ser Jorah. My brave knight, my dearest friend, the man I sent into the jaws of the lion. I admit this truth to you now, Lady Sansa, I sent him to protect Sandor Clegane and ease your mind. I had hoped that we might find some common ground if Ser Jorah helped to return him and your sister to you, but now we both find ourselves worrying and that is our common ground. Is it worth losing my lifelong ambition and my birthright over the man who made me into what I am? Could I assume the throne, knowing that I became queen by sacrificing him? Cersei knows us well in that there is power in love, power that can destroy us."

"If I had dragons," mused Sansa, "I would have incinerated her on the spot for doing that to him. For hurting him with fire when it's what he hates more than anything. And the person who made him fear fire was the one who made him face it again. I watched that happen and Cersei demanded everything I had to give and I realized I have nothing. Loyalty and titles don't win wars. Armies, dragons, _numbers_ win wars. And wars are started and lost over one person. Your family was slaughtered over a war because your brother loved my aunt. You can end this war over your love for your knight, but I can't end it either way and I can't help Sandor Clegane either way."

Admitting how small and insignificant she was to Daenerys was the ultimate form of surrender to this strange queen from across the sea who had stolen her brother's title, but Sansa's men made up less than half of the army that was now camped around them and the Northern lords had already bent the knee to Daenerys because their king had, which meant that if Sansa did not, she was a traitor.

And she didn't care either way because nothing she did was of any consequence.

"You will not speak of defeat and helplessness when Ser Jorah and Sandor Clegane yet live, Sansa Stark," said Daenerys, squeezing Sansa's shoulder. "We are women in a world built by men and if we want something, we can only have it if we aren't afraid to take it. Do you want him?"

"I want him _back_," Sansa heard herself whisper.

"Then we will take him back. We will take both of them back and we will do it because we love them, not for a throne or a title. We are not weak for our love for them, and that is why this is Cersei's war to lose."

Sansa's gratitude could not be expressed in words, especially when she and Daenerys had been disagreeable on everything prior to the afternoon's events. She would be indebted to the queen now if she managed to free the Hound before Cersei could make good on her threats. She would not be able to ask for the North's separation from the Seven Kingdoms. She would not be able to do what was best for her people if it did not fit into the queen's plans. But she would serve the queen all the same, as Jon did, for something greater than a throne and a title.

"I have no words, Your Grace," said Sansa heavily.

"You may call me Daenerys, Sansa. We were family before I met your brother; it is high time we start acting like one."

Just then, Sansa saw the smallest reflection of a child in her eyes, a little girl as innocent of the world's cruelty as Sansa had been, a little girl yearning for companionship and love from anyone in a place where none would give it to her. Sansa was not so different from the Dragon Queen, only she had been born a wolf and not a dragon.

"I need hardly add that if word of this conversation and all of its details including Jon Snow's true identity leaves this tent, I will know who to blame, and you will make a delicious snack for my dragons, ser," Daenerys told Bronn as she moved to exit the tent.

In all honesty, Sansa had completely forgotten that Bronn had been standing behind her this entire time, listening to every word of Sansa's relationship with the Hound, of Jon's parentage, of _everything._

"What conversation, Your Grace?" asked Bronn smartly and Daenerys gave him a condescending smile before taking her leave.

Sansa sank into the chair with her meal spread looking so inviting, yet she had no appetite as Bronn took a seat beside her and poured both of them a goblet of wine.

"That went well enough," he commented.

"What do you think I should have done today with Cersei?"

"You don't want to hear my opinion, m'lady," said Bronn, picking at the selection of grapes on the table.

"I do, that's why I asked for it," said Sansa, slapping at his hand.

"No, you _don't_ want to hear it, 'cause it's the ugly, no-wanking truth."

"Sandor Clegane always gave me the same courtesy of the ugly truth."

"That right there," said Bronn, pointing at her. "He rubbed off on you in a dangerous way. All that time jousting and being carted around by him and gods-know-what-else made you change your stance on 'im. I've killed and buried many young people like yourself who were willing to die for the people they love. You almost handed over the North to save 'im and as stupid as that is, Cersei saw that you wanted to do it. I think you should've known what you were walking into and prepared better for it."

She did not want to be sharing the intimate details of her affiliation with the Hound with anyone, least of all Bronn, and his answer put her in an even fouler mood.

"You're right, I didn't want to know your opinion, because it's wrong."

"You asked, m'lady. Now, let me ask you: do you love 'im?"

"No," said Sansa flatly. It was always so easy to speak half-truths and lies to her sworn shield because she did not fear to be judged by him on it, but he could still pick out her lies when she told them and he was not shy about pointing it out.

"I'm obliged to call you a liar."

"Call me what you wish, but do it silently in your head, Ser Bronn. You don't know me."

"I don't know you well, but I know you as well as I know that big fucker. I know what lovers sound like when they see the other in pain. You sounded like that."

"I have no lovers. The only man I lay with was the one who raped me."

"Don't have to have bedded him to love 'im, though."

"I'll hear no more of it, ser."

"You put the entire North up for grabs just for 'im. Doesn't that tell you that he means more to you at this point than your home and your people?"

Robb had done the same, sacrificed his good standing with Walder Frey to marry a woman he loved and he had died for it. Their mother, their bannerman, most of their army had died for it. Love abandoned reason. But she wouldn't do that for the Hound. She had almost been willing to surrender Bronn out of desperation, snatching at the chance while she had it, but she knew Cersei too well and knew that the exchange would not be honored. This was how she was different from Robb; she would not leave anything up to chance that the person she had slighted would have a kind heart. Cersei had no heart; it had died with the last of her children.

Sansa did not have much to barter with to begin with. Her hold on the North had been a delusion, but those people who depended on her to come to peaceful terms with Daenerys were enough to fight for, enough to be the reason that she couldn't surrender them when Cersei had asked for them. Even if she was an insignificant piece on this board game of war, she would hold the North for all those who had died for it. And it was the one thing, the _one_ thing she could not give up for the Hound.

"You didn't trade me," said Bronn suddenly, urgently, pulling her from her thoughts. "She gave you that chance to get your Hound back and you refused. Why?"

"Do you really think she would have set him free if I had? She wants all three of us dead, which is easiest to accomplish if there is no one watching over me. You, her best assassin, stand with the Starks. The Hound, the most formidable opponent and threat to the Mountain, is her prisoner. Me, the little girl she has hated since I was a child, who she sees fit to blame for her every misfortune, is heavily protected day and night. She would have shot both you and Sandor down as I made the exchange and then sent someone to finish me off. It is in my best interest to keep you, ser, but more than that, I am not Cersei, and the deal she proposed was one she would have made under similar circumstances with no hesitation."

"What if you get the big man back and it comes down to him or me?"

"No, Ser Bronn, I will not be trading you or surrendering you regardless of the circumstances. You have your right to earn your freedom, but you cannot do that if you are her captive or if I am dead, and I require you to remain close by to obtain that freedom. I will honor that promise so long as you can keep me alive."

Draining his goblet with a hearty gulp, Bronn clapped Sansa's shoulder, a forward move when not in training, but she knew his motives behind it. He was fond of her, always had been, and it was a surprising demonstration of humanity from a man supposedly black of heart.

"I like you, girl. You're kind, but not stupid with that kindness. You gave me a chance I didn't deserve and of all people, you fell for the fucking Hound—and don't deny it with me, I'm not judging you—so I don't feel out of place telling you this. Maybe you want 'im, maybe not, but you love 'im in whatever way that means to you and if she kills 'im, she's got nothing left to hurt you with so unless you and the dragon woman can come up with some elaborate plan to spring 'im from the Black Cells, death is the best you could hope for."

"The Starks don't give in to Death so easily," said a woman's voice, and Sansa called out to Bronn to stay his sword hand as she saw a filthy, bedraggled form rise up from the back of the tent. Covered in all manner of foul liquids and looking like she had chosen to run wild in the woods, was Arya.

Sansa ran to her, regretting the decision immediately as her leg protested the movement, but in her hobbled run, she reached her sister and threw her arms around her, stink and all. Calling for replacement clothes, Sansa watched Arya strip out of her current ones, wash the slime from her face, and don a robe, never letting her sword far from sight as she went to Sansa's unoccupied seat and began to pile bits of every sampling of food onto a plate, tucking in ravenously.

"You were separated how?" asked Sansa, for Arya had only recounted her journey with the Hound and Ser Jorah up to a brothel in Flea Bottom.

"He threw me off of the damned wall," said Arya, shoveling stuffed goose into her mouth. "I think he knew as soon as the Gold Cloaks were on us that we weren't going to get out of there together, so he pitched me into the water so I could escape. But the city's been on watch for a young woman dressed as a Northerner for weeks now and I've been dodging about to try and find a way in. The only thing I've had going for me was that they've been looking for _you_. He must have told Cersei that you were traveling with him."

Yes, that would explain why Cersei believed that Sansa had been the third in the traveling party.

"Did you see him today?" asked Arya. "I was hiding at the edge of camp and heard some of our men saying that you had gone to come to terms with her over a matter of prisoners."

"I did."

"How'd he look?"

"She's been hurting him," said Sansa, flinching at the memory. "He's thinner. He carried himself differently. But if she's drawn blood, I couldn't see it, so whatever's being done to him, his clothing hides it."

"She's been torturing him," confirmed Arya. "I found a way into the castle posing as a kitchen wench, but the other wenches got suspicious of me, even with one of my faces on, and I had to flee. But I could hear him screaming because for a few days, I was in charge of bringing the meals to the guard who takes them to the Black Cells. They're feeding both him and Ser Jorah well, but whatever they're doing to him—it's bad."

She frowned at the look on Sansa's face and put down the drumstick, wiping her fingers on the robe to take Sansa's hand. Gods, she even had the same table manners as the Hound. She reminded Sansa so much of him in the most frustratingly confounding way.

"I've been trying to find a way into the cells, but it's a maze down there and I'm no use to him lost."

"If he gave Cersei my name, he was trying to protect you," said Sansa, hoping to weasel a reaction out of Arya that would hint at what sort of relationship her sister had with the Hound. "He threw you over the wall so you could escape. He wouldn't reveal you to allow you free movement of the city if you were to become trapped in."

"Yes, he does things like that when you least expect it. It's always a nasty shock," said Arya.

"Very shocking to find out that men like at us can do something decent every once in a while," agreed Bronn, returning to pick at the grapes now that Sansa couldn't reach him across the table.

"I heard the two of you talking," said Arya, gesturing to Sansa and Bronn. "I didn't want to come in while Daenerys was here, so I waited, and I heard what Cersei almost made you do."

"Then you heard me tell your sister that it's not doing her any good denying her feelings for the big fucker in the Black Cells?" asked Bronn nonchalantly and Sansa wanted to smack him with the fruit platter.

"I did hear, and I'll ask you the same question, Sansa: do you love him?"

"Do _you_?" countered Sansa, prepared this time for the question.

"I asked you first."

"You do, don't you?"

"He's my friend. He's protective of me and I of him. I was nearly raped on the road here and he killed the men who would have done it. He turned half-mad with bloodlust to slaughter them because of what they wanted to do to me. It's in his blood, the need to protect us, but he's only my friend. It took years, but I forgave him of the things he did in Joffrey's name and I only admitted it when the Faceless Men beat me for lying about it. They asked me about him, asked me if I hated him, and if I don't hate him, I have to replace that hate with something. It's…respect, I suppose. And he doesn't hate me after the way I left him because of how savage he goes when he tries to protect me, so we have an understanding."

Arya tipped her plate to her mouth and the gravy and radish mixture trickled down her throat. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she drummed her fingers expectantly on the table. "Well? Your turn."

Just as she had claimed the Hound today, once she spoke the words, she would not be able to take them back, so she had to be careful. Arya would know if she was lying, but there was danger in the truth.

"I…don't know fully what I feel for him. But I know that the number of people I would give nearly anything for, I can count on one hand and he is one of those people. I would be in the same situation if Cersei had you, but I would not be so—conflicted. Do you believe that?"

"Yes, I believe that you're confused, but he's not. I confronted him about kissing you and he looked like a child caught pinching cakes from the kitchens, ashamed. Not to love you, but because he thought I wouldn't approve."

"Do you?" asked Sansa, heart leaping.

"Of all the men who have tried and succeeded to love you or possess you in some way, he's the only one who has made you happy, isn't he?"

Happy? Sansa didn't know the meaning of the word anymore. What could make one happy as a child was not even remotely the same as what could make one happy years later and the things she had found simple pleasures in: praise from Septa Mordane on her superb stitching, a brooch sporting the latest fashion, a horse to call her own, they were the enjoyments of a mere babe. She had not known a moment of true, unworried, unencumbered happiness in her adult life. She had been relieved to see Theon Greyjoy when he returned to fight for the North. She had been grateful to hold Jon in her arms and be held by him when she saw him at Castle Black. She had embraced Arya and Bran with lightness in her heart at seeing them alive. But there had been the looming threat of Ramsay and the dead and Cersei, leaving no time to find happiness.

She had not felt happiness with the Hound, but she had felt safe. Of all the men who had claimed to have her best interests at heart and the men who had blatantly hurt her for the sake of their own pleasure, she had never felt safe, could not draw breath without fear that it might be her last as she stood in the company of strangers and enemies. But Sandor Clegane had given her peace of mind. She slept soundly with him stationed outside her door. She woke without fearing the dawn. She could simply _be_ and be content in that knowledge that nothing would harm her so long as he remained by her side.

And she had brought a change about him as well, hadn't she? She'd made him smile and laugh. She'd made him _want_ something instead of existing out of spite and the inability to die. He had come alive in her presence, invigorated by her.

Maybe, that was enough for both of them.

Sansa crossed the tent to a chest at the foot of her bed and took out her folded training clothes with the Valyrian steel dagger safely tucked inside of them. "Take it," she said, offering the blade out to her sister. "If Cersei sees Daenerys coming, she'll kill him before we even get the chance to come for him. I know you can find a way inside and find him, I know you want to and you would go back there even if I didn't ask you to because like me, for a while, he was all you had. He deserves to be paid back in kind for everything he's done for us, so take it and set him free. And then both of you come back to me so we can go home."

Arya pushed the handle back at Sansa, patting the sword at her side. "You hold onto it and return it to me when I have him with me."


	20. Chapter 20: Breaking

**SANDOR**

He could not feel betrayed that she had not chosen to agree to Cersei's terms. She was an intelligent woman and would know that Cersei had no intention of honoring the trade. He was prepared to ruin his own work in screaming at her to not agree to make the trade if she had tried, but in refusing, she at least had kept the sellsword to ensure that someone was there to guard her by night. But more than that, what she had said to Cersei stirred the longing that had buried itself within Sandor's gut until it renewed itself in the form of feeble but nevertheless present hope.

"I do not barter with what is already mine," she had said.

He was hers. She claimed him, and though that could be taken in all manner of ways, he hoped that he had not misunderstood her. It was enough to bring out a reserved smile, hidden underneath the hood that had been replaced on his head as he was escorted back to his cell. The negotiations had not gone at all to Cersei's liking and he was likely to pay for it at some point in the next hour, but the miniscule expressions he had seen on his little bird's face had given him cause to fight back with his resolve to keep living.

Before seeing her, he had verged on surrendering to the pain and letting his mental strength disappear all in one go as an assurance that Cersei would order that he be put down. If she saw no more resilience in him, she would know that he was done, and she would let him die, but there was a chance, however small, that the Dragon Queen would topple the walls, burn the city, and come barging in atop her dragons to set Mormont free and if such an extreme solution came to pass, Sandor could go back to his little bird and—and he didn't care what the fuck happened after that. As long as he didn't die in the fucking cell…

As anticipated, Cersei took out her displeasure on Sandor by ordering Gregor to throw him bodily against the wall of the throne room. Sandor shook the hood off of his head, trying to chew through his gag as he felt Gregor seize him by the back of his breeches and drag him up the steps to the Iron Throne, pausing briefly on each for Sandor's knees to knock against them individually. At the top, Gregor located one of the sword points that was easily accessible and jammed Sandor's head dangerously close to it, giving Sandor no other view than the tip that was inches and seconds away from being jammed through his eye.

"Quite a little minx she's become, your whore," said Cersei, sitting upon the throne and watching Sandor almost lazily as he used every ounce of his muscle strength in his neck to keep his head from being impaled. "And your Dragon Queen, Ser Jorah, is fuming right now, bordering on the brink of the same madness that claimed her father. What to do, she wonders? If she takes this city with fire and blood, she sacrifices you to get it. I will have a guard stationed in the cells with you so that the moment she takes action against me, you will be brought before the city gate and executed as I promised her."

"If you had let me speak to her," said Mormont in defeat, "I would have told her not to."

"Would you have told her to surrender?"

"No."

"Then your words would have had little use elsewise. You are the branded property of the crown until your queen yields, but if she will not, she can have you back in pieces."

Mormont had nothing to say, hanging his head.

"Sansa Stark promised to see you both freed, though she has no power to do so," Cersei continued. "Yet, she swore on the name Elinor Clegane. Why would she swear on your mother's memory, Sandor?"

Gregor lightened the pressure on Sandor's head and tossed him down the steps without warning where Sandor came to a grueling halt at the base of the dais on his stomach, kissing the marble floor through split lips. Marching back down to him, Gregor took Sandor's bound wrists behind his back and clenched them hard enough to bruise the bone as he lugged Sandor to his feet to face Cersei who was still expecting an answer.

"That was my sister," said Sandor bitterly now that his gag had fallen off after being manhandled. He did not want to share his family history with this woman who would only use that information to hurt him further, but there was nothing to be gained in withholding the truth from her now.

"House Clegane never bore a daughter."

"You want to try and tell _me_ that I imagined having a sister? Ask him," Sandor pointed at Gregor, able at long last to accuse his brother of the crime that had tore any semblance of normality from Sandor's grasp at such a young age. "Ask him why he raped my sister to death and then shoved me headlong into the fire to silence me because I saw it happen. Ask him why he did it. Why did you fucking do that?" he spat, feeling foam rising at the corners of his mouth.

Cersei appealed to Gregor, asking without words if what Sandor said was true, and in the first sign of life from his brother's undead body, Sandor watched him nod with no remorse.

"You want to tell me that raping your sister and trying to murder your brother is less of a crime than walking away from a battlefield where there were hundreds of soldiers to protect the king you were charged with protecting? If I despise you for anything, it's for having that _thing _in your service despite all he's done and sentencing me to death for lesser crimes. I didn't like your torture-mongering son, but I held my silence and protected him, protected his sister and brother. _He _would have raped your daughter if you had given him the same duties while he still had the mind to do them. Wouldn't you, you fucker?"

Gregor closed his fist over Sandor's face, pinching at the pressure points and forcing Sandor to yield, to drop to his knees and muffle his cries as his brother tried to break his face. He had no access to his hands, he couldn't break away. Of everything Cersei had done to him, he hated this most, being at his brother's mercy time and again, being humiliated and beaten and abused by him, knowing that whatever remained of that brutish, bully of a boy was enjoying this. A brother's hate went deeper than his loyalty to his queen, and even if Cersei called him off, Gregor might not heed her. He had no reason to; he could easily turn around, stomp up those steps, and end her, and if he wanted to kill Sandor just now for finally speaking aloud what had been kept secret for nearly all of Sandor's life, he would.

Sandor had to say everything that was flashing through his mind in case these moments were his last and Cersei could not reel Gregor in. He wanted his brother to know everything that Sandor thought of him, but his head was pounding were Gregor was digging his fingers into it and the very act of forming thoughts was almost impossible.

"She was _my_ sister, you bastard," he spat at Gregor, catching a glimpse of one of those bloodshot eyes through the fingers over his face. "I'll fucking kill you for that."

Gregor's hand left Sandor's face and went instead to his throat. Then the other joined it and Sandor felt his feet leave the floor as Gregor held him at arm's length and pressed down on his windpipe.

"You would let him kill his brother for speaking the truth, Your Grace?" called Mormont somewhere behind Sandor. "He was a boy who saw his sister assaulted and murdered before him and you would let the man who did it have the last victory? Your brother Tyrion shot your father down in cold blood; would you let him emerge victor for it? I beg you, call your man off."

The command was not forthcoming and Sandor tried to scream through his blocked throat, sensing the world go silent, temples throbbing as darkness closed in on him…

"Stay your hand, Ser Gregor, it would seem that you already punished him for what he witnessed years ago."

With his skull pounding and blood vessels popping where Gregor had tried to crush the bone underneath, Sandor let himself topple as Gregor released him, face down on the floor with nothing to cushion his fall.

"What a magnificent creature you resurrected, Maester Qyburn," said a new voice that spoke in several octaves as sound returned to Sandor's ears. He stayed where he had fallen, not caring about the newest fucker to come to taunt and torture him. If he could just lay here awhile, if they would just leave him be—

Gregor pulled at his hair, lending more pain to his already aching scalp to give Sandor a clear view of a man dressed in mostly black leather with gold trimming at the cuffs, though his under-tunic was purposely left unbuttoned to reveal the upper half of his chest. The pressure Gregor had applied to his skull made Sandor feel especially dimwitted at the moment, as he was having trouble placing the house colors when he had been drilled on them for countless hours to better educate Joffrey.

"Pray, tell, who are these prisoners my love has procured?" asked the man, planting a kiss upon Cersei's cheek, to which she did not appear pleased.

"Traitors to the crown, but leverage for peace," she responded.

The man ambled down the steps from the throne, his swagger irritating Sandor to no end. He had bulbous blue eyes that masked a madman who probably enjoyed torture more than his queen. On his breast was the slightly deformed sigil of a kraken, its tentacles out of place from the displacement of his buttons.

House Greyjoy. Which meant this had to be Euron Greyjoy, commander of the royal fleet, usurper of the Salt Throne, and a complete git.

Hands on his knees, Greyjoy leaned over into Sandor's face, flashing him a broad, even grin with an unnaturally white set of teeth that Sandor could have broken if he had cared to headbutt the prick.

"And who might you be?" he asked Sandor, but Sandor refused to be played with by a man a quarter of his size, so he held his silence, which he could see angered the kraken. This was a man prone to easy tantrums and in Sandor's experience, men like him didn't last long at all. "Your future king asked a question of you."

"The future king can go fuck himself," said Sandor.

With the speed of an assassin, Greyjoy revealed a hidden dagger and pressed it to Sandor's cheek and surely would have cut it wide open to expose the inside of Sandor's mouth if Mormont hadn't spoken out at that moment.

"He is Sandor Clegane."

Greyjoy made the connection between Sandor and Gregor and his grin broadened. "You're an ugly fucker, aren't you? Must run in the family. A second son, born of no titles, like me, but I earned titles for myself by seeking my own fortune and now I find myself the most powerful man in Westeros."

A talker. A talker who liked to talk about himself. There was nothing more dull and with his time left in this world coming to a close, Sandor didn't want to spend what remained of it listening to this wanker feed his own ego.

"By murdering your own brother," said Mormont. "And attempting to murder his children, one of whom died in the Great Battle to save ungrateful, undeserving men like you."

"Yes, I had heard little Theon tried to grow back his balls by taking on the corpse that wore the crown. Always was a stupid boy."

"Must run in the family," said Sandor.

Greyjoy delivered a swift kick to Sandor's crotch and he blew air hard out of his mouth to swallow his outcry. "Tell me, Sandor Clegane, how do you find yourself here to feed my sadistic temptations?"

"He is the former sworn shield of Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell," said Qyburn. "He served her and serviced her until his thirst for his brother's blood brought him to our queen's mercy. He has been sentenced to death."

"Sansa Stark?" repeated Greyjoy, licking at his lips like a predator about to sample flesh. "I saw her coming up the Kingsroad. My scouting party spotted them miles off, but she stood out like a beacon with that gorgeous red hair of hers. You shared a bed with her and you left her for _this_?" He nodded at Gregor with a hearty laugh barely concealing the sound of insanity. "If I had a beautiful woman, nothing could pull me from her side and you're a fool for it. But I'll allow you to see her once more before you die. When the Dragon Bitch sets her armies upon us and is met with the war elephants and swords of the Golden Company, I'll raid their camp and find her. And when I find her, I'm going to bring her back here, throw her down in front of you and fuck her bloody for you to watch. Would you like that?"

Sandor was a statue, unmoving, unblinking, blank. This Greyjoy fucker was a true kraken at sea, but on land, he was nothing but a man with an undersized cock that did his talking for him and Sandor would be sure to tell the Dragon Queen to feed him to the bigger of her two dragons.

"Normally, that would merit some sort of response," Greyjoy prompted.

Nothing was more tempting than to spit in the bastard's face than in this moment, but even that would give the kraken more information than Sandor could afford to offer. Two decades of wiping his face clean to hide his displeasure had left him well-trained, and he put that to good use now, forcing himself to look back at those maniacal blue eyes and do absolutely nothing.

"There's really no fun in this if there's no reaction on your end," said Greyjoy.

"Leave him be," said Mormont. "He's done nothing to you."

"He's slighted my queen and sided against my queen, which makes him my enemy. I will toy with him as I please, as I will you if you don't learn to shut up when no one's talking to you."

"This one you will leave alone," said Cersei. "By my command, you will not touch him."

Greyjoy's eyes raked over Mormont in a promise that no matter Cersei's command, there would be blood spilt between them.

"That is all for today," said Cersei. "This time tomorrow, we will know if your queen will answer with mercy or fire and blood, Ser Jorah. This time tomorrow, you will know if your life is forfeit." She summoned Qyburn to her side in what should have been a private conversation, but she let it be heard by all, meaning for it to register with Sandor. "If there is no reply from Sansa Stark, send your best."

"Ser Bronn _was _my best," said Qyburn.

"Surely, there are other men in this wretched city who can match the coward. He's a witty little weasel, but he can't hold off all of them at once. Send them all, offer two thousand gold dragons to whoever brings me the sellsword's head and Sansa Stark."

Sandor stared hard at a scuff mark on the floor, eyes watering with the intensity of his gaze so as not to betray a single flicker of emotion. They were all looking at him now, waiting for him to burn in his own lie.

"You may yet see her again, as you were promised, Sandor Clegane."

"You'll not be any poorer in purse, no matter how many men you send. Those dragons could sense their mother in distress from miles away when you burned her knight. Do you think a handful of hired swords are going to be able to get into that camp with their stench sending out a signal in all directions to the dragons?"

No, of course Cersei hadn't considered this, because as wily as she was, she was not an intelligent woman and had as quick of a temper as her new kraken lover.

"Sansa Stark'll be heavily guarded, not just by men, not just by dragons, but by the wolf as well, the last wolf from the litter of pups gifted to the Stark children. You remember the pup you had slaughtered? Sansa Stark's pup, the kin of the one who actually savaged your boy when he tried to stick his sword in Arya Stark's gut? That wolf was no bigger than a dog. Its sibling is as big as me now, though, and no man is getting close enough to even sniff her with that direwolf around and mark my words, it'll be with her."

He had no way of knowing if the wolf was with her, but something told him she would not have allowed it to be left behind. She was part of its pack and it would look after her, even if it was the last to do so. Gold motivated men more than anything and two thousand gold dragons would ensure that any man who could hold a knife would be after the little bird, but if the wolf was with her, she stood a chance.

Gods, how he prayed that wolf was with her.

"Take them below," Cersei instructed.

The stillness of the cells was, for the first time, a welcome sight for Sandor—or, perhaps, not the sight of it since he could see nothing once the Queensguard had taken the torches after chaining him to the wall again. Trying to find a comfortable way to adjust the iron collar clasped at his throat, he felt pain in every swallow.

"Cocksuckers," he muttered.

"You said some harsh words today," observed Mormont after a time.

"Did the job though, didn't they?"

"Did they? I don't know what you were trying to accomplish, unless it was to spread the word that you bedded Lady Sansa."

"They did their purpose. Cersei believes I fucked her and that that was the end of it."

"And did you?" prompted Mormont.

"Interfering little prick you are today, aren't you? Nosing into my business."

"You made your business known to over a hundred witnesses including Jon Snow. Dozens of people believe that you lay with her, that you might even have planted your seed within her, that the Lady of Winterfell carries a bastard child. Tell me how those words did more good than harm to her reputation?"

"Her reputation won't mean shit if Cersei gets a hold of her and I made sure the bitch wouldn't have the chance when I disowned her in front of everyone. And if anyone who heard it has a problem with it, they can take it up with her. She can tell the truth if she wants, so long as Cersei doesn't get wind of it."

"And what is the truth?"

"That I'm going to break your nose the next time I'm close enough to touch you if you don't shut up. I'll save Greyjoy the trouble."

"You never lay with her," said Mormont, sounding quite certain of his assumption. "The change in a man after he's been with a woman he's lusted after is apparent in his face and you're as foul-tempered as ever. If you had been with her, she would have made a change in you." Sandor's silence confirmed his statement for him, but Mormont asked for the truth from Sandor's own lips all the same. "You can tell me the truth, Clegane. I'll not go parading the fact that you never had her. Who would I tell? You're the last company I'll ever have."

Despite the many times he had had to tell Mormont to not speak out on his behalf, to not interfere and keep his damn mouth shut, Mormont had come to his rescue today. Gregor would have collapsed Sandor's throat and that was the one executioner Sandor refused to die by. He would have, but Mormont had begged Cersei to command Gregor to stop. It would be a small sacrifice in telling him his heart's one desire, especially if Mormont had already guessed it long before this.

"Alright, you persistent bastard, I wanted her. I had all the chances in the world to tell her right up until the second we were walking out of the fucking gates of Winterfell, but I didn't take the chance because it was more important to me to kill my brother but here I am now and I never even got to draw steel. Now I don't have either satisfaction. I'll never get to fuck her."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word," said Mormont, his gravelly tone speaking of disapproval.

"Every other fucking word out of my mouth has been fuck the whole month and a half-long ride down here and the last month spent in these fucking dungeons so why is it just now starting to bother you?"

"Only when you use it in terms of intercourse. When you lay with a woman, you can describe it as love making or bedding or even buggering, but I have always associated the use of fuck to be the same as rape. It implies taking someone against their will, violently, without meaning. Did you want to rape her?"

Sandor definitely was going to hit him at the next opportunity. "No, you twat, I didn't want to fucking rape her—"

"Then you didn't want to fucking fuck her," snapped Mormont.

"Fine, I wanted to lie with her. I wanted to bed her, stick my cock in her, and have her enjoy it, just like you want with your Dragon Queen. I could have done it, but she didn't want it. I fucking hate everything because I was so damn close, but it didn't happen, so those are the happy thoughts that help me sleep at night before that greasy cunt Qyburn comes and waves his fucking torch in my face."

Mormont let Sandor's own miserable words echo around them and the emptiness that followed made Sandor wish he had kept those words to himself. He almost was to the point of prompting Mormont to say something when the latter spoke, his voice burdened, resentful, and full of despair.

"It's not from a missed opportunity that you hurt, Clegane. You hurt because you don't deserve her but that doesn't stop you from wanting her. And you tell yourself that you want to fuck her because that's all you know how to do but to even consider what she wants is what makes you different than all the men who have wanted her. I don't know what it is to look a woman in the eye and tell her I love her and see that same love returned, but I would know it if I did. I looked Daenerys in the face and told her how I loved her and I saw her heart break for me because she could not return my love. I saw that same look today when Cersei burned me. But my queen did not scream for me as yours did for you."

"She's not a queen, you idiot."

"She will be. Whether an alliance exists between her and Daenerys is irrelevant; Lady Sansa will see to it that the North separates from the Seven Kingdoms and the Northerners will look to her as their queen. And as a queen, she cried out for the man she wants."

"She wants me alive and safe, but she doesn't want me. That Bolton son of a whore took too much of her and didn't give anything back and she's scared of intimacy. She's scared of what's going to happen to me. But she won't go to war for me," said Sandor. He could not bring himself to be entirely truthful with Mormont on this one piece of private information. His little bird wanted him, or at least, she had when he had tried to rip her clothes off, and she was scared to go further, but if he had had more time with her, she would have, he was damn sure of it. And she would beg the Targaryen woman to burn the Red Keep first to keep its inhabitants occupied, to make them forget about their prisoners and leave an opening for Sandor and Mormont to escape. She would ask this for him, but she could do nothing if the Dragon Queen refused. His little bird had no power on her own in this place of lions and krakens.

"Your queen will, though. Her damned house words: with fire and blood. You heard her say it. If Cersei does anything to you, your queen will come for you and use her dragons to incinerate everyone who stands between the two of you. Even if Cersei doesn't touch you, your queen will come for you. It's just a matter of who gets to you first if they see her coming, and on a giant fucking dragon in broad daylight, she's hard to miss."

He heard Mormont give a sharp intake of breath, heard the chains shifting about as Mormont tried to adjust himself. "Blast it, she had them burn deep, didn't she?" he growled. "I've had layers of skin sliced off of me, but this—this _burning_…"

"The burning never stops," said Sandor darkly, knowing firsthand how long the pain could last. "It never goes away. You always remember it, and so you always feel it and no amount of water can ever stifle that sensation. Believe you me, submerging the affected area in water won't make a shred of improvement. It's the gods' way of inflicting a form of immortality on us. Everlasting pain that knows no end, incurable. Those who have been burned have been to the first layer of hell and you've only had a sampling of it."

"I can't imagine," said Mormont and Sandor was about to tell him off, claiming no want of his sympathy, but he heard none. "I'm angry at her for doing this to me to see Queen Daenerys suffer for my pain, but for a boy to do this to his own brother, meaning to kill him to silence him—your hatred isn't misplaced, Clegane. I never understood to what extent your loathing for your brother went, but imagining what he did to your sister for no good damn reason, and then turning on you with just as little regard for the lives of his own siblings, it angers me. I want him dead."

"You're welcome to have a go at him, if you think it'll help," said Sandor. "I've been trying for years. The fucker doesn't die."

"He will. I don't place much faith in the gods, but I don't believe they would let a creature as hell-bent as that outlive everyone he's ever wronged. I'll see him dead, yet. I'll see him buried in the ground and see you returned to your lady just to spite his corpse."

"You're too kind," said Sandor with a roll of his eyes that went unseen.

"It's what you want, isn't it? To go back to her? I made you a promise that I would get you there and I intend to honor that. Whether or not you will admit to wanting it, it's going to happen and after it does, I expect an apology for you dropping my bedroll in the mud."

"If you were any more fucking honorable, your head would collapse on itself from the weight of that rubbish that just came out of your mouth."

"I come from a line of thick-skulled Northerners," said Mormont. "And you can claim to think ill of my honor as often and loudly as you like, but you don't seem to mind it when it comes from another, red-haired Northerner's lips."

Sandor heard it in Mormont's voice, the amusement. The tosser was smiling at him.

"Don't you fucking smirk at me," he barked.

"It's not _at _you if you can't see it," Mormont pointed out.

"I can hear it, and you'd best stop it while you still have teeth to grin with."

"You would argue with a toad if it could talk, Clegane."

"You'd defend a pile of horseshit if your queen told you to."

/ /

His back still burned the following morning when Mormont nudged his boot to waken him to the sight of Qyburn's torch coming for him. Even if water would not help, Sandor still wanted to submerge himself in it to relieve the pain if only for a few moments. He thought wistfully of the frozen wastelands north of the Wall, of snow drifts towering over him at Winterfell, of even the trough with which they had tried to half-drown him. Of course, he regretted those thoughts when he discovered that he was being taken back to the trough. It seemed they had temporarily run dry of new methods with which to torment him, or else were revisiting the ones that he had responded least favorably toward.

This particular segment might be his last, he thought fleetingly before they stuck his head into the trough for his first underwater excursion of the day. He knew good and well it would not be, but the part of him that had the wishes of a hopeful green boy thought that there might just be an end to his waking nightmares if his little bird found something to offer Cersei in exchange for him. It all could end today, but it wouldn't because she had nothing to give that Cersei desired and even if she did, Cersei would take it and withhold Sandor.

It was an empty hope to cling to, but it was the only way Sandor made it through another punishing day being used as a human experiment. Upon each resurfacing, he saw Mormont silently instructing him to hold out for just one more, always just one more. And when they took him back to his cell, he was light-headed enough to think that a rescue party might be on its way, that the Queensguard might be coming even now to prepare him for his return to the services of the North.

Of course the Dragon Queen had given in to Cersei's terms. Of course his little bird had agreed to trade her sellsword knight for Sandor. He was fucking valuable to her. She wanted him, didn't she? If she didn't give up anything at her disposal for him, she didn't care enough. He knew he sounded like a drunkard, but his desperation was uprooting his childish feelings of selfishness and self-pity.

The mental toll was too straining on him. He had been a whipping boy for too many people for too long and he needed someone to care, just once, enough to spare him. He needed someone to care about what happened to him, not because they were told to care, but because they wanted to. The last person to care had died shortly after.

"Torchlight," said Mormont when Sandor felt sure that it was well past sundown, and past the deadline for the sending of envoys. He straightened his posture, not wanting to appear conquered if his liberation had come.

_Idiot, she doesn't have the means to set you free. She promised you because that's all she can give you, false hope._

If he was truly clinging to false hope in full awareness of its falseness, then Cersei was already halfway to her goal. He was breaking, unable to face his sentence with the same vigor and steely courage he had before. It had to end, or it would end him.

Absent their helms, it was Oakheart and Kettleblack who had come, and their grins were all Sandor needed to know that negotiations had fallen through.

"Daenerys Targaryen has offered no reply," they told Mormont. "There is no word from the camp at all. The queen takes the traitors' silence for refusal to continue negotiations. Your life belongs to the crown, and now that you no longer need be made presentable, prepare yourself for what is to come. And you, Sandor Clegane, may resume counting down the days until you die."

Oakheart and Kettleblack left them in the dingy dreariness of defeat and Sandor's heart sank further into his malnourished stomach.

"Presentable for what is to come?" asked Mormont. "What—"

"Don't be thick, you ignorant twit," snarled Sandor. "Cersei promised that you'd rot down here if your queen did nothing, and she's done nothing, so you'll die of natural causes or insanity, whichever comes first, and the fastest way to break you is to make you a participant in the fuckery they do to me every day."

"She can't make me," said Mormont stoically. "I will not stoop so low as to let a tyrant make me brandish the whip which is used to torture you."

"Fuck your honor, ser knight. You're going to do it, doesn't matter what you want."

"It's an easy thing for you to say, isn't it? Having no honor yourself."

"Oh, and how those words wound me," snapped Sandor. "You've done dishonorable things, you said it yourself. Selling slaves, kidnapping, treason against your queen. You know how much you can take, so take this: you'll do what they tell you, even if you have to take the whip to me yourself. Or the iron, or the sword, or whatever the hells she puts in your hands. You'll take it and you'll do it."

"I'll not be used as a device with which to further torture you," insisted Mormont. "I refuse."

"Then they'll kill you," said Sandor plainly.

"Then they'll kill me."

"You're a prideful numpty and I'll not have your death on my conscience just because you wouldn't take up the whip and just—fucking—do—it."

"My pride has nothing to do with it. I've had to watch everything happen to you, unable to do a damned thing about it, but to be a participant in it would shatter what little grip I have left on the reality I live in. I don't claim to have a more difficult plight than you when you bear the marks and I bear only the sight, but you are familiar with the concept of being unable to act to protect someone right in front of you, aren't you? It's not just infuriating, it shatters the soul and breaks your resolve. It's my own stupid fault for speaking out for you, but Cersei saw that my first instincts were to come to your aid, and she wants to use that against me. I can't let her, and I won't. If you have to continue to endure this, one of us needs to remain sane and I assure you, that will not be me if I have to beat you bloody every day from now until our last."

"You don't have to wait for someone to put something in your hands," said Sandor on sudden, hopeless inspiration. "You could use the chains…" He rattled them suggestively.

"I can't reach you, and even if I could, I wouldn't," said Mormont. "Why would you even propose that?"

"Maybe it's because I've fucking had enough. No one is coming for us, and if we're alone, if I'm alone and all I have is you, you owe me this last favor, this mercy."

"Sandor, I can't—"

"Take up the whip or take up the chain, you bastard! You have to choose one or the other. You don't get to opt out of this; that freedom of decision was taken from you. If you don't want to kill me, don't let someone worse beat me and if you won't beat me, you can't let me live with this."

He had given Mormont much to think about. Come the dawn, Cersei would insist that Mormont take part in Sandor's punishment and if Mormont refused, Sandor would suffer. If Mormont complied, Sandor would suffer slightly less—until the next day. There was no victory in either option. There was no victory in death, either. There was nothing anymore.

Only as his utterly spent body admitted him a small amount of sleep did Sandor realize that Mormont had said his name, one of two people to do so since he had last heard it from the lips of his dying sister. The usage suggested a shift in his companionship with Mormont, a change he was unaware had taken place. Mormont feared for him in a way he should not, as if they were more than traveling companions, but Sandor saw him as nothing more. The old bear was a fellow fighter, a soldier, a man, and little else to Sandor.

But he cared enough to profoundly beg Cersei for Sandor's life. Of his own accord he had done that, revealed to the enemy his weak spot—camaraderie. Mormont, who had lived such a solitary life like Sandor, had come out of it completely different in that he longed for the company of others, longed to belong where Sandor only wished to not be seen.

In that admittance of fear on Sandor's behalf, he had given Cersei the tools to break him, as the little bird had given when she tried to run to him. And what tools did she have to break Sandor? She had the fear that one of her hired swords might capture the little bird and she had Mormont. If Sandor showed any concern for them, she would have everything she needed to send him over the edge and he could not afford to fall over just yet.


	21. Chapter 21: Not Yet

**SANSA**

The hope she had nurtured for a quick release for the Hound and Ser Jorah was not as quickly put into action as she would have liked, for their strategy had to be readjusted if they were to liberate the two men before Cersei sent her executioner to them. A lone soldier charging the gates would incite her wrath and she would take it as an open declaration of war, which would ensure that the Hound and Ser Jorah would be delivered in pieces to them. Arya had no further success in finding a way into the castle that would also enable her to find a way out with the two prisoners in tow, though she was not discouraged, returning to camp every night to admit yet another passage into the castle that would not be available to her.

Endless hours of pouring over maps and placing their greatest assets, only to dash the plans in favor of a more promising one that would turn out to have a flaw, the greatest and most prominent being visibility. There was no way to seize the Red Keep without being seen and yet taking Cersei prisoner seemed the only way to prevent bloodshed on both sides.

Another evening of unsuccessful plotting and Daenerys dismissed them at their leisure. Jon, Grey Worm, Ser Davos, and Missandei had already gone to attend to matters around the camp, leaving a scattered handful of them to consider their thus-far-unproductive plans.

Sansa made the mistake of vocalizing her aggravation as she claimed loudly that the Hound's sudden departure from Winterfell was what had brought them to this stalemate with the least favorable opponent.

"I had no idea that he was so adamant about leaving until he sprang his decision on me. I thought he was content to be a part of something larger than himself."

"It was not on sudden inspiration that he had the wherewithal to leave, my lady," said Lord Varys contritely, "But rather at the behest of those who had your best interests at heart. I had words with him concerning his affiliation with you and the sad fact that he was a distraction and beseeched him to remove himself from your services to allow you peace of mind in attending to the matters at hand."

The Hound had come to her for what was meant to be their second private supper taken together, but he had come to her chambers looking vexed at some terrible news that he had only just heard. He had admitted to her that there were some who thought that he was a distraction to her, some being solely Lord Varys. And four days later, he had gone. He would have stayed longer, found safety in numbers as they took the city, never found himself Cersei's captive.

"And tell me, Lord Varys," said Sansa, feeling herself grow hot around the collar, "After the Hound left, did you find that I was more or less attentive to my duties? With our entire battle plan examined from every possible angle to ensure the safety of Cersei's prisoners, would you say that your efforts at urging Sandor Clegane to remove himself from my services were beneficial?"

"I could not have forseen—"

"Correct, there was no difference," said Sansa, speaking over whatever sordid excuse the man could conjure. "I cannot help but notice that you did not offer this wisdom to Daenerys when she took my brother as a lover, nor did you discourage Jon to _remove himself from her services_. Apparently he is not a distraction to her but the Hound is one to me? And even now, would you dare to call your queen's dedication to rescuing Ser Jorah a distraction?"

Daenerys did not speak out in Lord Varys's defense, and so Sansa let loose on him. "I will not have one more _man _tell me what is best for me and stick his nose or some other part of him into affairs that do not concern him. Every single man who assumed that he could choose my future for me is now dead, Lord Varys. And if I want Sandor Clegane, I will have him and you may not interfere in that matter or you will find yourself interfering between whether the direwolf or the dragons feast on you."

Admittance directly to the Spider, the source of rumors and whispers that the Hound was hers and she would let no one impede upon that. How far she had come to be able to duel and threaten the Master of Whispers himself. If only the Hound could see her now.

Lord Varys bowed as deeply as his back would allow, assuming the position as he saw himself out, only to be replaced by Arya who was wearing what Sansa recognized as a serving girl's clothes. She went to the table of picked-over food and made herself a scattered plate of whatever she could reach, shaking her head as Sansa waited for news of an update on her progress.

"I saw him," said Arya. "Cersei had Ser Jorah whipping him in the throne room. I think he fell unconscious because the screaming stopped after a while and then I was sent away."

"Ser Jorah wielded the whip?" asked Daenerys, horrified.

"Word in the kitchens was that he tried to have a go at her with it after I'd left and refused to hit the Hound one more time, but yes, he had to do it the first ten lashes or so."

If Cersei had sprang ahead to mutilation, she was growing impatient. Her depravity knew no boundaries, but even she could grow tired of torturing a man who declined to let it consume him, as Sansa so hoped was the case. The Hound must surely be putting up a magnificent fight for Cersei to forgo continuation of whichever type of defacement she had previously been subjecting him to in favor of brute force.

"Every day we wait, she's chipping away at him," said Sansa, knocking wooden marks asunder on the table. "She won't harm Ser Jorah so long as you do nothing Your Grace, but she will have been torturing Sandor Clegane relentlessly since we ignored her envoy. We cannot wait any longer."

"What do you propose _we _do when we have already arrived at the conclusion that for the time being, we have no discernible option?" asked Daenerys.

Sansa kneaded her temples in search of an answer. They had no discernible option, no visible option.

_Visible._

"Ser Bronn, bring Ser Jaime to me," said Sansa suddenly. "And Lord Varys."

Without question, Bronn left and Daenerys shared a look of encouragement with Sansa as both of them realized where they had been going wrong with their plans. They had tried to find a way in which their army would not be detected when the real solution was finding a way to move a covert team in undetected, not a mass, and to accomplish this, she needed to create her team made up of individuals who knew how to smuggle both themselves and others in and out of the castle.

Ser Jaime looked surprised but pleased to have been summoned, at long last seen as worthy of trust enough to be allowed in the council tent. He bowed and showed respect where it was due in time to beat Lord Varys to it, leaving the bald man to offer a look of apology to Sansa, shamefaced at being scolded and brought back like a disobedient child.

"I do not need to ask you where your loyalties lie, Ser Varys, for I know them to be with Queen Daenerys, though you have shaken my confidence in you. With the task I am about to assign to you, I expect you to repair that mistake. Ser Jaime, you may prove your loyalty here and now by answering one simple question."

Straightening in determination to prove himself, Ser Jaime awaited her question but Sansa knew his answer would not be a simple one and not the one she wanted. She would have to play at his sympathies, his insecurities, and remind him of why he stood with the North.

"If the order was given to you, as it could be given to any soldier in this army, to kill your sister by command of Queen Daenerys, could you do it? Would you?"

Closing his eyes as if praying for the right words to answer, Ser Jaime gave a single shake of his head. "I fight for the North, my lady. I will kill Lannister soldiers clad in the colors of my house, men who I fought with, men I drank with and know well. But I will not kill my sister."

"You mean to tell me that after my sworn shield Brienne vouched for you despite the fact that you threw my little brother out of the broken tower, that you would not kill your sister? Was Brienne mistaken in the kind of man you are, Ser Jaime?"

"You command the one thing of me I cannot do."

"Then you're of no further use to me, the North, or Queen Daenerys. Go back to your sister, Ser Jaime, and know that you will receive no clemency when you are found protecting her on the battlefield. And if I see you, I will command Ser Bronn to kill you and that is a match you will not win."

"My lady—"

"You are dismissed and relieved of your place among the Northerners. You have until sundown to collect your things and leave this camp."

"I cannot return to my sister, my lady. She and I did not part on good terms. She disowned me because I chose my brother over her. She has an army to protect her, but Tyrion only has me, he's only ever had me and I will stay by his side until Cersei no longer draws breath. I will not stop other men from killing her, but I cannot perform the deed myself. I would capture her, bring her to you, and allow you to take her life, but do not ask me to be the one to swing the sword. I will not also be labeled kinslayer."

"You swear this on your brother's life, that you would do nothing to interfere if we took your sister captive?"

"I swear it," said Ser Jaime, kneeling with his swordtip buried in the ground.

"Then rise, Ser Jaime, and hear what I say. My sister has found her way into the tightest, long-forgotten corners of the Red Keep, but she has no knowledge of where one trap door begins and another ends. She did not spend the amount of time in the castle as you did. You sprang Tyrion from his cell."

"With Lord Varys's help, yes, but he was not held in the Black Cells." Ser Jaime had guessed her motives. "Even if your sister makes it inside, you can be assured that Sandor Clegane and Ser Jorah are being heavily guarded, as are all prisoners after Tyrion escaped so easily. The Black Cells are so-named because even torchlight is useless if you do not know where you are going."

"Lord Varys, you will provide a detailed map of the cells and every passageway that might allow a rescue party to find its way in and out of the castle in the quickest, most efficient way possible while the army occupies Cersei's attention. Ser Jaime, you will go with my sister, and be part of that rescue party. With the knowledge procured from Lord Varys's stores of knowledge, you will find Sandor Clegane and Ser Jorah and help my sister free them and then I will give you your last pardon. If you betray my house again, it will be the last time."

"If we find ourselves betrayed by our closest allies, it seems my dragons and your wolf will have quite the feast to choose from," said Daenerys.

"And if that happens, best take off the gold hand first," said Bronn. "Gold doesn't go down well."

"That will be all," said Sansa, dismissing the two men to whom she had entrusted the Hound's life. Men worked well and proficiently under threat of death, but the promise of being fed to a dragon was much more powerful than that of being fed to a direwolf. She hoped that she was not mistaken in asking Ser Jaime and Lord Varys to prove once and for all that their intentions were as noble as the queen they served.

"You said that we will keep Cersei's attention on us while your sister leads this team," said Daenerys thoughtfully. "Do you plan for your sister to get to our men in time before Cersei can have her way with them when she sees us attacking?"

"Her attention will be on _the army_," Sansa clarified. "But she will still see you coming if you launch an aerial assault."

"Then it would be best for her not to see me coming," said Daenerys with the thrill of battle in her eyes. "Take heart, Sansa, we may yet see this through with our men intact."

Sansa didn't ask what she meant.

She played with a marked carving of what represented a thousand Unsullied warriors on the table, mulling over Arya's dire observations that Cersei had had the Hound whipped like a mongrel for biting its master. That dreadful scream she had had to listen to at the gate was torn from his throat tenfold and though she had not been present, she could hear it even now…

"Now that your sister has cleared most of the spread and made off with the better bits that remained, I wonder if I might have a word with you, Lady Sansa?" posed Tyrion after a short time during which Sansa had been lost in in her own mind of perverse visions of blood and screams.

Arya had indeed gone, as had Daenerys, leaving Sansa, Bronn, and Tyrion as the last members of the council—though Bronn was not _on _the council.

"Anything you have to say may be said in front of Ser Bronn," said Sansa. "You entrusted him with much more secretive information than anything you're about to tell me."

"While that may be true, I would only have him sent away to spare both of us the displeasure of his unguarded tongue."

"You didn't mind it when it was working for you," Bronn pointed out.

"Spare me a few moments of your irritating words while I address my former wife and lady," said Tyrion wearily and Bronn conceded. Tyrion kept his distance from Sansa, as he always had, not seeking to touch her or come near her for fear that she would recoil from his hideousness—not that he ever had been hideous. "My lady, you don't trust my brother, I understand—"

"Why do you, after how many times he chose Cersei over you?"

"Because he chose me the last time, the time that mattered most. There are so few people in this world who have loved me, Sansa, and even fewer who have given me moments of happiness in my life and as much as it may displease you, my brother is one of those people. I will not lose my brother to my sister again. He promised me."

"But he has betrayed you before," reasoned Sansa. "Surely, you can find _one_ person who has loved you and never hurt you as he has?"

"I'm not certain that any such people exist now," said Tyrion sadly with a quick glance at Bronn. "And if you profess your love for me, I will have you thrown out of this tent by the back of your breeches," he promised the sellsword.

"I loved the coin you gave me, but our friendship ends at friends and doesn't go beyond," Bronn assured him.

"What about me?" asked Sansa, properly astonished at her own admittance.

"Well, I don't love you, either," said Bronn.

"That was not an invitation to join the conversation. Hold your silence," said Sansa, directing her attention back to Tyrion. "Do you believe that I ever loved you?"

Tyrion chuckled without humor. "You pitied me, as I pitied you. Me, the Imp, the last son of a great lord, forced into a marriage with the disgraced daughter of a traitorous lord. No, my dear, I don't believe you ever loved me."

"But I did. For the first time, at Joffrey's wedding, when he toyed with you and made you fetch his goblet. You did as he commanded while glaring at him, hating him, and he was terrified that he couldn't make you fear him. When I reached under the table to grab it for you, I saw him staring back at me with the same hate and promise to punish me for taking your side over his. He saw us as a dual pair, a matched set of rebels to his reign. I felt such power in defying him then, but I found myself fearing for you more than I feared for anything or anyone when he ordered you to kneel and you refused. I did not fear to lose your protection as my husband and lord, but to lose your company, lose _you_. You were every bit the knight I had always envisioned for myself, but I was too much of a ninny, still wanting after someone taller to see it. I did love you, as my dear friend, for that was what you wanted us to be."

Tyrion's small frame gave a trembling sigh and Sansa detected tears behind the fine amount of facial hair and curls that obscured the more appealing parts of his face. He strode forward, hands outstretched to take hers, and he laid a meaningful kiss upon them. "You, my lady, are every bit the fine young woman you were always meant to be. And a true friend, indeed."

What a breath of fresh air, to tell her once-lord husband that the fondness she held for him was entirely based upon a friendship that he had started. She wished happiness upon him, to find someone who would love him as a man deserved to be loved, but she knew that he was ever so grateful for her and what little joy she could bring him in their friendship.

"Did you love me?" she asked on inspiration, though she knew and had known the answer since he threatened to chop of Joffrey's manhood if the king forced the bedding ceremony upon her.

"I did," confirmed Tyrion. "I do. But not—not romantically. I have wished you nothing but happiness and you had none of that with me, but I took you as my wife as a reassurance that nothing worse could happen to you than already had. My father insisted upon it, but I realized that if I had refused, he would have married you off to Gregor Clegane or someone else who might have done you harm. And Joffrey would have demanded to have you. Even with me as your husband, Joffrey wanted to have you, which was why I stood vigil on many nights, not that I could have held off the Kingsguard, let alone one of them. If ever he had tried it, I promise you, I would have died throttling the little bastard."

Sansa recalled the bags under Tyrion's eyes, how after marrying her, he seemed so weary when speaking to her, though he still tried to make light of their horrible marriage. Had he really spent many sleepless nights guarding the door to prevent Joffrey and the Kingsguard from forcing entry to assault her?

"If your brother and mother had lived, if you and I had had a chance to grow closer, you might have changed your mind and we might have consummated our marriage before Joffrey's wedding, but I stand by what I told you: I would not have shared your bed until you wanted me to. It was more important to me that you trust me than to please my father, which was my own undoing. If I had tried to be more accessible and forthright to you, I might have saved myself much grief at the trial, might even have made a better case for myself. Cersei wanted me executed straight away and anyone associated with me, so I had to send Podrick away before she got the chance."

"Did they execute Shay as well?" asked Sansa, fondly remembering her handmaiden who had taught her how to first show her teeth when backed into a corner. A headstrong woman, but Sansa's friend nonetheless, and one who had been willing to kill for her. Cersei would have had her killed to discover Sansa's whereabouts and poor Shay must have died in tears, not knowing where her lady had gone to abandon her to this fate.

It was incredible, how sadness, anger, betrayal, hurt, and acceptance all passed over Tyrion's face in a matter of seconds. He looked down and away, chewing at his upper lip as if there were something unpleasant caught in between his teeth, but when he returned his gaze to her, he hurt for her. "Sansa, _I_ killed Shay."

"You…what?"

Surely Sansa had misheard him, but why would he lie to her about this, now? What could be gained in telling her anything different?

"She was my lover. I brought her to King's Landing and placed her in your service to hide her from Cersei. And she grew quite fond of you, but when she discovered that you and I were to be wed, she grew jealous. She tried to conceal her feelings, tried to continue befriending you, but then she was discovered leaving our quarters and I knew Cersei would have her hanged, so I scorned her and sent her away. Only, she didn't leave. She stayed and reported to my trial, promised amnesty for her affiliation with me if she testified against me. She lied and told the court that you and I had plotted to have Joffrey killed. And the night I escaped, I found her in my father's bed and I strangled her before murdering my father at the privy."

The news was a hard punch to Sansa's breast. This woman whom she had trusted above all others, who Tyrion had planted in her service and even after their marriage, not seen fit to tell her about, _hated _her. She had told the royal court lies because she was a woman scorned by a man who loved her. What terrible, terrible things women could do for love.

_I would never_, vowed Sansa. _I would do none of those things for—_

_ Yes, you would. You have. You plan to. You want Cersei dead because she burned the Hound and mocked you for it. You threatened Lord Varys because he intervened. _

Sansa swallowed hard, deciding that now was not the time to have a battle of morality within herself. When she had found her voice again, she told Tyrion, "Then you truly were my only friend in King's Landing, and one of the few I have left."

"Not the only friend in King's Landing," said Tyrion knowingly.

"He left long before you and I became friends."

"But he cared for you. He was the one to cast his cloak about you when I walked in on Joffrey's example-making of you. He could not have done so on his own accord, for he dared not defy the king. It would have meant worse punishment for you and death for him, but once I gave him leave, he was the one who did that for you."

"He was being decent in a room full of indecent people."

"Yes, and how many of those people went back for you when the mob set itself upon us? When he returned you to us, do you know what he said to me? I commended him on his bravery and quick-thinking in rescuing you, but he told me it was not out of duty that he had done it. He left Joffrey to the Kingsguard and went back specifically for you. If I were a man of his size, I might have done the same thing, but not for the same reasons. Even then, you had made more than just a friend in Sandor Clegane. And even now, you are trying to do the same for him."

"And you think I'm a fool for doing it?"

"I would never say such a thing to you, but no, I don't think you are. I think you're seeking the thing that brought you the happiness that I could never give you but always wished for you. And if you love him so, go get him. Damn what Varys says or your brother or anyone who isn't you. You are the Lady of Winterfell and you have Daenerys Targaryen at your side, so _go get him_."

"How?" asked Sansa. "I'm nothing without the armies that fight for me—and over half of our army fights for Daenerys. I cannot command them to die so that I may rescue one man. It is already asking too much of my sister in having her skulk about the dungeons in search of him. I conceived this plan because it is the only thing that might stand the slightest chance of working and after Arya brought news of what Cersei did to him today, I can't wait. What sort of leader does that make me, to throw careful planning aside in favor of the speedier option?"

"You went to war against Cersei for what she did to you and your family. You continued to wage war against her because of that reason. And you will continue to for as long as it takes because she still has the means to hurt your family. Your decision is much easier to deal with if you accept that the war began out of love for your father. Your brother Robb was the first to want Lannister blood out of love for your father, your sister, and you, and now you have taken up his place out of love for what was done to your brother Rickon, your people, and Sandor Clegane. Thousands died for the very same war started by your brother and thousands more may yet die for the war you will finish, but both of you were and are good, capable leaders because you value life and understand the costs. Your people will continue to fight for you because you fought for them. Cersei's people will abandon her when they discover how she means to use them and then, you will have your Hound back."

As he always had, Tyrion was trying to bring her happiness when she could find none for herself.

He left her to consider his words and she sank low in her seat, glad there was no one but Bronn present to see her slouch in a very unladylike manner. Pressing a wooden cup of water on her, Bronn helped himself to the food she had not yet eaten on her now cold plate.

"Are you bored by the proceedings, Ser Bronn?" asked Sansa scathingly.

"It's all a bit of the same over and over. Arguing and more arguing because everyone's got their own ideas about what wins wars but only half've the twits have been in one. And then there's you having everyone in the whole bleeding camp tell you how obvious it is that you're in love with your Hound and you still not believing them."

"There is a very bold line between loving someone and being in love with them, and you would do well to remember which of the two applies to me."

"Aye, t'is the latter, m'lady."

"Shall I call for Ghost to come and finish off what he began on your arm, ser?" asked Sansa, bristling at Bronn's lack of discretion. "You are the single most irresponsibly arrogant man I have ever had the displeasure to-

"Shh," said Bronn suddenly, holding up a finger to silence her as he cocked his head toward the far end of the tent. He hurried over to the serving table and blew out the lantern there before returning to her side and gesturing that she do the same to the five remaining lights. They made quick work of dousing the tent in darkness.

Sansa felt his hands on her, steering her around and closing her arms around his stomach, willing her to copy his every move as he used his body to shield her from potential attack. He stepped back and she moved her foot in unison with him, feeling his pulse throb through his clothes as it beat with an experienced killer's cadence. Another step back and she heard the softest telltale ring of metal as he drew his dirk. His other hand found hers joined at his navel and he squeezed her fingers, alerting her to his next move.

She dropped, covering her head with her arms as she heard steel clash upon steel, then the sound of flesh parting to accept a blade.

"Up," hissed Bronn and Sansa stood, replacing her arms around him. He was moving them sideways now, back toward the map table where two of the six lanterns sat. "Find a lantern, tip it over," he whispered to her.

Sansa reached blindly into the dark for the feel of the copper hoop handle and found it after much fumbling with the various devices on the table. She kept one hand on Bronn's hip and smashed the lantern over onto the table, guiding his hand to where it had gone over.

"Drop," he commanded, and she fell once again, but instead of cowering, she watched the warm candle wax take a spark from Bronn striking his sword against it and instantly, the table's contents went up in flames, illuminating the tent and four hooded figures closing in on them.

Sword in one hand, dirk in the other, Bronn kicked the table at two of them, scattering sparks in their direction. Three stools caught fire, then the tent itself, burning a barrier between Sansa, Bronn, and half of the men sent no doubt by Cersei to kill both of them.

"It'd be in your best interests not to do what you're about to do, lads," said Bronn, but none of the men heeded him. Sansa took one of the burning stools by the legs, brandishing it to fend off the two furthest men as Bronn moved in to battle the other two. She had not been swinging the stool half a minute when Bronn took her shoulder and bade her move behind him as he lifted his sword in suggestion to the other two. Sansa saw that he had properly dispatched half of their opponents, but her surprise was short-lived as he put down the next two just as quickly.

"Not worth the time it took to dig them out've the shit in Flea Bottom," said Bronn. "Come on, this whole tent's going to go—"

He tried to move her toward the exit when they found their path barred by five more men and this time, they all charged in at once.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Sansa used the only weapon that could take on all five men simultaneously: she screamed. Her cry halted two of the men who looked as if they were weighing their options between killing her and collecting a pretty penny or escaping now before soldiers came running to her aid. The other three were on Bronn, none of them so poor in their swordwork as their predecessors.

Bronn's movements were a blur, cutting an arc with his sword while stabbing viciously with his dirk, dodging under his opponents' weapons. Shoving a cushioned chair at the legs of one of the attackers, Sansa gave Bronn an opening to cut the man in half at the abdomen. A quick duck under another man's wide attack and Bronn buried his dirk in the man's dangling genitalia and then ripped his way through it to ensure that the latter would bleed out. He threw the dying man into the third assassin and stabbed his sword through both of them in one thrust, inviting the remaining two hired swords to approach. The braver—or perhaps less intelligent—of the two launched himself over the burning table and impaled himself upon Bronn's waiting sword.

"There's the flap, go, girl!" Bronn shouted, shoving Sansa away from him to give himself enough room for a close-combat duel with the last man. Sansa hitched up her skirts and ran as fast as her bad leg allowed, but a chance glance out of the corner of her eye revealed another assassin closing in on Bronn who did not see, for his back was turned. Drawing the Valyrian steel dagger Arya had insisted she keep on her person at all times, Sansa prayed for her aim to be true and doubled back, driving the tip forward into the second man's spine. She gasped at the feel of his life seeping out with the blood that spewed from the entrance wound. It was a shuddering sensation, pumping blood, muscles going lax, weight collapsing all at once.

Then he was dead and Sansa held the knife that had taken his life.

"Oi!" Bronn was pulling his sword from his own kill's body, glaring at Sansa for still being present when he had told her to flee. "What in the hells d'you think you're doing? I told you to run, girl!"

An explosion of fire blocked her off from him, burning at her eyelashes and she had to turn away, but only momentarily. When she could see somewhat clearly again, she found that the explosion had thrown Bronn into the serving table, rendering him uncoordinated. On his knees, he had the sense to tuck his weapons away and start to crawl on his stomach, but the smoke was already overwhelming him. Sansa dropped to her knees, keeping her head low as she navigated the maze of burning furniture and smoke until she quite literally made headlong contact with him and knocked both of them over.

"Told you…to…_run_," Bronn said again.

Sansa pulled him to her, hugging his torso to hers and using the full weight of both legs to stand even though her broken leg was having none of it. Draping his arm about her shoulders, she maneuvered both of them onto a clear path for the exit but was blinded by the smoke and fell as it clogged her lungs. The canvas from above fluttered down in a fiery skirt, settling on Bronn and lighting his cloak aflame and without thinking, Sansa grabbed it, yanking hard and choking him in the process as she fought to free him of it. Her hands burned, but she ignored the pain, searching in the haze for the stars that would lead her out into the open night air. She lifted her head and her face leveled with that of a white beacon in the world of orange and red flames.

Ghost moved around her, taking the material of Bronn's tunic and dragging him along. Sansa closed her hand around Ghost's fur and saw where he was leading her, to a torn exit in the tent. She dashed through it, choking, eyes straining, and Ghost followed not three seconds after, now pulling Bronn and having the man haphazardly crawl forward to both assist the wolf and break free. Ghost did not release him until they were well away from the tent and Bronn cursed the wolf the whole way, twisting in Ghost's grip in an almost comical manner.

There was a line of soldiers throwing great heaps of water on the tent while others attempted to tear down neighboring tents to avoid setting the entire camp ablaze. No one paid heed to Sansa, Bronn, and Ghost as the three of them tended to their burns in the pond Ghost had led them to. Splashing water over Ghost's fur where she saw steaming bits, Sansa wrapped her arms around his neck in a grateful embrace. Licking at her ear in return, Ghost drank a few mouthfuls from the pond, watching Bronn submerge his singed knuckles.

"Don't think I've forgiven you for what you did to me arm," Bronn told the wolf.

"I think he thoroughly expects forgiveness after what he did just did for you," said Sansa, sitting down in the shallows of the pond and scooping handfuls of water onto the back of Bronn's neck where the flaming cloak had licked at him. He shuddered, but let her continue her work until she had treated all of the affected areas and then did her the dishonor of laying down on his stomach and crawling into the pond to douse himself entirely.

"What was the purpose," she began to ask, but he submerged his head and she had to wait for him to surface before continuing. When he did, she slapped him and said again, "What was the purpose in having me help you if you were just going to flop down in there like a fish anyway?"

"What you were doing felt good," he said honestly with a cheeky grin.

"I should have you flogged for that."

Pulling himself back up beside her on his elbows, Bronn draped an arm around her. "Like I told you before, I like you, girl. But not like that. Not like _he _does," he said shrewdly. "You held your own in there even though it would've served you better to run like I told you the first time. Though, if you had, I suppose we wouldn't be having this conversation. You did me proud. Your Hound would've faced the fire to see you battle the way you did."

Sansa doubted very much whether the Hound would have faced his greatest fear just to see her stab a man in the back, but she didn't pose this thought to Bronn just now. She had always found it so easy and automatic to thank men who had fought for her because it was expected of her, but it was rather difficult to manage the words just now because she had not expected it of him. She knew he would fight for her if it came down to it in a great battle, but she did not anticipate that he would completely disregard every instinct to use his body as a barrier between her and the men sent to kill her.

It was what the Hound would have done, though for different reasons. Bronn desired his freedom, but his loyalty went beyond that of a man fighting for a woman because it was his duty. He had done his duty and then continued to do more as he choked on smoke, accepting that he might die under the burning tent. Freedom did not exist in that moment when he told her to run, again and again.

How odd, how very funny of the gods to play such a cruel trick on her in making all handsome knights evil men and making all seemingly evil, ugly men the most dutiful. Men the world labeled as unfit because they did not bear the resemblance to the knights in her childhood songs. The Hound, Tyrion, Bronn, men of honor, men who respected her, and had suffered for her.

Reaching up to her shoulder to pat Bronn's hand, Sansa found the most worthy apology she could muster. "You will not sleep in the soldier tents tonight, ser. You will not sleep chained any longer, but take your place in the adjoining compartment of my tent, as is befitting of a proper sworn shield."

"Aye, m'lady," said Bronn, taking her hands and helping her to rise out of the shallows, both of them a sopping mess.

"And Ser Bronn?"

"Aye, m'lady?"

"Thank you, for my life."

"Thank you for mine, Lady Stark."

/ / /

**JORAH**

They would come for Clegane every morning and he would holler, kicking and swearing as they bound him in chains and dragged him above, each time with more and more men assigned to the task of bringing him to Qyburn, for he refused to go easily. Jorah followed obediently, needing his strength and wits about him to combat Cersei's plot to undo both him and Clegane by using Jorah as a pawn for her bidding. But one day, they left him behind with nary a word to him. He saw confusion in Clegane's face and trepidation as Jorah was left chained to the wall, ignored by the men who had come for Clegane alone.

As much as he would deny it and curse any man who dared to speak of it, Clegane relied on Jorah during those long hours at Qyburn's disposal. Jorah was the only semblance of kindness that Clegane knew, his crutch when all else abandoned him. For him to go into this new session alone, Jorah did not like to think of what sort of damage it would do to his mind.

"Steady," said Jorah as Clegane leaned back into the wall to postpone his departure. It was all Jorah could think to say to the man that would not reveal something more that existed between the two of them to potentially be used by Cersei.

Alone in the darkness, he thought for the first time about how he might break his wrist to free it of one shackle and then work at the others to go running after Clegane. It was imperative that he be there, for Clegane's sanity, if not for his own. His mission had been to ensure the safe return of Lady Sansa's man, but that was only when all that could happen was for them to be met with multiple men to battle instead of solely Ser Gregor. Jorah could not have foreseen this, and so his motives had changed to fit the situation. Clegane was his responsibility for as long as they shared a cell.

It was suddenly made clear that Jorah had no business sitting here imagining what might be happening to Clegane even now when he had the means to try and free himself. Hacking up spit, he rubbed his saliva onto his left wrist to moisten the skin and make it easier for the iron shackles to slide over, twisting every which way to pull himself free. Five minutes of fighting the thing had yielded only a bloody wrist and a further ten had trapped his wrist bone at the midway point with the shackle pressing uncomfortably against it. He placed the shackle between his ankles for leverage and pulled, grunting his discomfort.

Then he saw the torchlight returning and Ser Balon came to him, cocking an interested eyebrow at Jorah's position, hunched over and fighting to free himself.

"Where were you planning to go if you managed to get all four limbs free?" asked the knight.

"I expect where freed men flee to," said Jorah smartly.

"You'd have been looking for him in the wrong places," said Ser Balon. "He's in the throne room. They're waiting for you."

Jorah was surprised in the wit of this one. He had reason to believe that the recent knights who had guarded the kings and queens were not of a particular intelligent sort, save Ser Barristan, but Ser Balon had apparently been observing Jorah and knew good and well where he planned to run to if he had managed to escape.

"Why the show of bringing us separately if we both are to end up in the same place?" asked Jorah rather irritably as Ser Balon unchained him from the wall and replaced his restraints with ones that would enable him to walk.

"The Queen has her reasons."

Yes, and those reasons were never for anyone's benefit, so Jorah walked with trepidation, not quite wanting to find out what awaited him at the end of this short journey. The throne room was empty of all but those who always attended Clegane's punishments, as it had been the several times Jorah had been in it since his arrival in the city. Cersei did not sit the throne, instead standing beside her prisoner and at Jorah's arrival, her full-lipped smirk widened.

Clegane had been stretched tightly across one of the columns closest to the throne, bound by a multitude of chains that prevented him from moving a fraction in either direction. Jorah knew what sort of punishment was meant to be dealt here today and he knew why Cersei had waited to summon him. For Clegane to think that he was about to enter this highly painful sentencing alone, he would enter a state of alarm much quicker than if Jorah had been with him from the start and already, Jorah could see Clegane's shoulders heaving with anticipated breath.

This would be Jorah's first test, mayhaps his only test if he refused to do as Cersei commanded.

Ser Gregor was waiting for Jorah not far behind Clegane with a bullwhip in hand and he shoved it into Jorah's arms with enough force to make Jorah take several ungainly steps backward.

"You will do the honors today, Ser Jorah," said Cersei.

Jorah saw the back of Clegane's head perk up in both relief that he would not be facing this beating alone, but also apprehension over their argument where Jorah refused to be the one to strike.

"I will not," said Jorah quickly, looking away from Clegane to gift Cersei with the full intensity of his glower.

"You misunderstand me. That was not a request. I am giving you an order to participate in the whipping of Sandor Clegane and you will obey or he will suffer worse for it."

"Your disregard for human life and decency sickens me," said Jorah. "I've watched you do unspeakable things to this man, but I'll not partake in them to feed your unsavory quest for revenge."

"You will flog him, or his brother will."

"You fucker, fucking get it over with or I'll strangle you tonight while you're sleeping," roared Clegane almost as soon as the words had come forth from Cersei's mouth. It was a cry for help, a reminder that Clegane had no power to lessen his sentence, but that Jorah had some small measure of it and that if he would not do as Cersei bade, there would be far worse things to come. Jorah could not save him, but he could spare him his brother's hand.

Jorah took the whip in both hands, feeling the corded leather and wincing as if he had had the weapon turned upon him by Ser Gregor. He was supposed to take this thing meant to strip the flesh from a bull's back and _beat_ Clegane with it? Of everything Cersei had put the man through, this would be the first to leave marks that could potentially be life-threatening.

"Even for a man of his size, one too many strikes with a whip like this could kill him, by infection if not initial deliverance, Your Grace," he said, spitting on the taste of the words.

"Qyburn will see to it that he is well cared for after. I do not intend on allowing him to die when there is so much more for him to be subjected to," promised Cersei. "You may stop when I command it, Ser Jorah, but you may not be lenient with him."

Jorah approached Clegane with the Queensguard following him, ready to restrain him if he attempted anything other than to prepare Clegane. Bunching up Clegane's filthy tunic to expose his heavily scarred back, Jorah saw the gooseflesh breaking out down Clegane's spine. He tucked the material out of the way over Clegane's shoulders and grasped one of them, squeezing with remorse. Clegane flinched at the contact, perhaps anticipating that it was to be a clout from an enemy and not the touch of a companion. It was a difficult thing to swallow, the rejection of his comfort because Clegane had been taught to fear human touch, even when it was offered to him in his moment of need,

"Forgive me, my friend," Jorah whispered.

He took his place several paces behind Clegane and well out of reach to test the thing before committing to the first hit. Taking care to not stand in the line of fire himself, he gave an experimental flick and the harsh snap it left on the air made every face in the room balk. Clegane's reaction was most visible as every muscle across his back rippled and tensed. The man had so many scars already and Jorah was expected to give him more.

"At your discretion, Ser Jorah…"

_Gods be good, take the strength from my hand to deliver gentle blows,_ he prayed. _Give him the courage to see this through._

Closing his eyes, he drew back his right arm and then snapped it forward. He could hear the flesh tearing and even on the first strike, Clegane could not swallow a sharp gasp of pain. He was normally so composed and did not let out any sound than at the very end of whatever was being done to him, but the whip was made to loosen tongues. Jorah struck out again and was rewarded with a soft whimper from Clegane.

He changed his prayer on a whim. _Let him fall unconscious._ It was better if Clegane was not awake to have to feel each and every lash.

"You disappoint me, Sandor. I was expecting us to have to reduce your back to carved flesh before we heard the smallest peep from you," said Cersei, clicking her tongue contemptuously.

Clegane pressed his face against the smooth stone of the column, barking out something that might have been, "Fuck you", but it was too garbled to make out properly.

Jorah released his mind from the task at hand, going instead to his home, Bear Island in the heart of spring. The crystal clear waterfalls broke through the layers of ice that had made them dormant all winter. The meadow yielded the snow flower, named for its appearance at the turn of spring, the first flower with blue-tinted petals to shoot up from under the last of the snows. Sailors and traders would be making their way into port to engage in the first exchanges of the year. Children of the village ran about at the temporarily constructed stalls, eager to see the wares of the exotic traders. They laughed, chasing one another about, screaming in mock fright when they were caught…

Such screaming…

Jorah saw a mess of blood and flesh before him. Puddles of the stuff dripped down into Clegane's breeches, leaking into his boots and coming out on the floor to spread in all directions. He had gone limp against the column, hugging it with his entire body and digging his forehead into a sconce just above him. From what Jorah could count, he had been struck at least eight times. Had it already been eight? _Only _eight? And Jorah had not been mentally present for six of those lashes.

"Away with you, girl," shooed Qyburn presently and Jorah caught a serving girl scurrying for cover with a hasty bow as she retreated with a wine platter in hand.

"I did not tell you to stop, Ser Jorah," said Cersei, taking a sip from the goblet the girl had supplied.

"I can't," said Jorah, swaying convincingly as if his strength had suddenly left him dizzy.

"He has not even received the full number of lashes dealt to criminals who suffer from lesser crimes. Another seven will not kill him, unless you are requesting that Ser Gregor take over from here?"

No, Jorah certainly was not requesting that.

"What say you, Sandor? Can you take another seven? Again, Ser Jorah, do not make me tell you twice."

In his haste to comply, Jorah was unprepared for the wail that made its way out of Clegane's chest. It went on for several excruciating moments as he roared out his hatred for this game, his pain, his anger, and his desperation for it all to stop.

"Again."

_I can't._

He let the whip fly and felt himself recoil as the tip sliced across Clegane's back. His knees were knocking together, warning him that his reserves were about to run dry.

"Again."

"Your Grace—"

"_Again, _Ser Jorah."

"Your Grace, I beg you—"

"_Mormont!_"

Clegane called for him, even now, to remind him that what the alternative would be. Ser Gregor would put the weight of an elephant behind every stroke. It was all that was keeping Clegane from going mad with the pain and Jorah was too weak to follow through on his promise to his queen and his friend: protect, by whatever means necessary.

He made a great show of winding up his right arm, putting any strength that remained inside of him into holding back, to deliver the least amount of pain as possible. He felt something burst in his forehead, felt blood dribbling down between his eyes, and struck. His knees failed him and he hit the floor hard, spitting red from between his teeth with the effort from where he had nearly bitten through his tongue. Feeling a burning scream rising in his own chest, he turned to Cersei and hurtled the whip at her, painting a splatter of blood across the floor with his throw. He let out an enraged roar of aggravation as the whip came to a halt at Cersei's feet.

Cersei met his gaze and he saw no compassion, no look of a human with any emotion. She gestured at Ser Gregor who retrieved the whip, letting it trail out behind him like a snake leaving intricate patterns of red on the floor behind it. Ser Gregor passed by Jorah on his way to deliver the last handful of blows and Jorah caught his wrist. His full weight was not enough to even stop the man as the Mountain continued walking, but Jorah coiled his arm around the whip as his other clung to Ser Gregor's wrist, determined to not give an inch back. Trying to both maintain a hold on the whip and shake Jorah free, Ser Gregor lifted his arm and Jorah's feet left the floor.

"You forfeited your right to wield the whip, Ser Jorah. Release Ser Gregor," said Qyburn.

Clegane's blood was soaking into Jorah's sleeve from where the whip was wrapped almost painfully around his arm. He met the Mountain's lifeless stare, knowing that he was about to lose an eye or a brain in holding on. He let go, scrambling forward to place himself between Clegane and Ser Gregor. His body was not nearly large enough to protect all of Clegane's, but it had to be enough.

"As amusing as your dedication to the worthless is, Ser Jorah, you will move aside," ordered Cersei.

"You will have to move me," answered Jorah. It would be easy for her to do so, have two of her Queensguard drag him off to the side, but for all the buggery that had just occurred with the blasted whip, something had changed her mind. A change of heart or perhaps she was bored with the proceedings, but she stood and made her way forward to Jorah.

"The longer you try to protect those who are already dead, the worse they suffer for it. Save both yourself and him more pain and accept that he is beyond your help."

"If I gave in to that method of thinking, I would have died a long time ago. If we all thought that way, none of us would stand here to bicker about it. You may see life as meaningless with no one by your side, but not all of us give up so easily."

He had called her weak, slighted the queen in front of her subjects, and his immunity granted to him by Daenerys's actions or inactions could not undo that. But Cersei said nothing and her Queensguard moved in to pull Clegane down from the column.

By some miracle, he was still conscious, eyes rolling back and forth as Ser Arys, Ser Preston, Ser Osmund, and Ser Balon each took one of his limbs to carry him back to his cell. Qyburn instructed Ser Gregor to escort Jorah and the Mountain was not gentle, dragging Jorah by the scruff of his neck, forcing him to struggle for every step.

He was almost grateful to be back in his cell if it meant he would not have to stand, but he rescinded that notion when he saw Clegane laying stomach-down on his straw bed, face turned to Jorah, every muscle creased. Qyburn knelt above him, arranging the loose bits of skin and applying a mixture of a salve and a liquid that smoked when it came into contact with Clegane's skin, but it must have had some sort of cooling properties, for Clegane gave an almost relieved whimper.

"There, that's better, isn't it? I must say, I wasn't entirely sure what would happen, for this is a new invention of mine, but the queen gave me leave to test it out on you. If it does what it's supposed to, you might even see renewed skin within a day or two and until then, it will set deep into the exposed flesh and act as a natural pain supplement as often as it is applied. I will apply a second layer when I come for you tomorrow."

Qyburn laid bandages evenly over Clegane's back and advised him to sleep on his stomach but the man had no rebuttal, in far too much pain or perhaps beyond the point of caring. When they had been left in silence and solitude, Jorah strained his body forward to find Clegane with his boot and nudge him and begin to offer his most profound apology.

"I tried to be gentle, but how does one gently crack a whip upon bare skin? I—"

"No, it was enough," said Clegane's gravelly voice, coming through clenched teeth. "You did as I asked, and that was enough. But next time you think to come between me and my brother, don't. He won't let you pass a third time."

"What can I do for you now?"

"Just shut up. I need silence…to sleep…"

After Jorah's near failure today to do the one thing Clegane had asked of him, the least he could do now was to leave the man to pass into unconsciousness, so he did. He saw that Clegane was either feigning sleep or still dead to the world when the guards came with their evening bread and pigs feet meal but not even the smell of one of Clegane's favorite protein sources could rouse him. Jorah ate his meal in silence, waited for Clegane to come awake in silence, and ended up falling asleep waiting in complete silence.

The gods damned him, cursed him with the burden of being a light sleeper, easy to wake, hard to drift off, and he heard a sound that tugged at his own heart and made him ache so terribly that he was nearly brought to tears of his own when it stirred him. Muffled cries. Deliberately stifled weeping from a hand pressed over a mouth. The actions of a man who had been taught that to show emotion was to show weakness. Even now, with no one to see him, and only Jorah to hear, that man was trying desperately not to be heard.

If Jorah acknowledged that he was listening, he would only receive criticism and defensive insults, but to sit here and listen to this powerful presence of a man weep because of his never-ending pain and to not _do _anything about it did not settle in Jorah's mind. Propriety had no place in a prisoner's cell, but to nurture a broken man was not being decent; it was being human and Jorah doubted very much whether Clegane had ever had someone to offer comfort to him before.

Jorah had no words to quell the desolation that had taken up residence within Clegane and even if he did, Clegane would cut him off, make empty threats, and be just as despondent as he was before Jorah started talking. If Jorah tried to touch him with the little slack his chains allowed, Clegane would hunch away, a stranger to friendly touch. What, then, could Jorah do?

He cleared his throat to let Clegane know he was awake and listening, but not judging. He heard a break in the sobs, but it did not last and Clegane resumed, though now without the sound of a hand slapped over his mouth to suppress the sound. On and on it carried for what must have been hours: years of buried grief and sadness that were coming out tenfold in Jorah's presence. For Clegane to submit to that human weakness in front of him, it was an establishment of trust that had not been there before. Clegane could admit his lust for Lady Sansa and his failures in life, but to weep and let his body win over his heavily guarded mind, he was handing Jorah a valuable weapon that a lesser man would use against him. It wounded him, to hear a man so beyond shame and in such an unbearable amount of pain that he could hold it back no longer.

Jorah's life had had little meaning before coming into Daenerys's service, but if there was one thing he had missed out on in being her shield, it was the companionship of anyone else. His complete devotion to her had left him no room and no time to make friends, and it was his one regret, other than selling Daenerys's secrets to Robert Baratheon in the first place. He could not say that he and Ser Barristan Selmy had been friends, but he respected the man. Grey Worm was incapable of making friends, too lost in the mindset of an Unsullied warrior. Daario Naharis had been his rival for the queen's affections. Tormund Giantsbane was a fellow warrior and a madman, but they did not know each other well. Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow were perhaps the closest thing he had to a real friendship, but the former was built on mutual dislike of the other's habits and the latter made out of a bond established by Jorah's father.

Necessity had made him Sandor Clegane's companion but desperation had made them friends. He knew Clegane had none to begin with, didn't want any, saw no use in them, but with nothing in this place of death, he had grasped at the only thing he had, which was Jorah. It was a dismal thing to consider, but there was also a certain honor in being the only man who could claim to have befriended the unfriendly Sandor Clegane (at least, the only man still alive, for Clegane had told him of the man who had saved his life and died for no reason).

Jorah felt hot, salty dampness emerge from under his closed eyelids and trail down his face and did nothing to stop it.

/ /

As promised, Qyburn returned to reapply his miracle ingredient combination to Clegane's back and then had none other than Ser Gregor haul Clegane upright to sit against the wall rather than lay where he had been. As the Mountain shoved at his brother none too gently, Jorah saw Clegane blink up into Ser Gregor's eyes with—perhaps the tiniest morsel of remorse?

"What'd you do to him?" Clegane asked Qyburn.

"I saved him. He had been stabbed multiple times by a contaminated blade in his battle with Prince Oberyn. The venom had its way with him, eating away at his flesh as he died, but I was expelled from the citadel for my more _daring_ methods and it was by my quick intellect that I was able to save him before he had permanently gone to face his final judgment. In his rebirth, he was able to understand what had happened to him almost instantly and respond to questions with a nod or shake of his head, but if he is capable of speech, he chooses to remain silent."

"You didn't save him, you twat. If it was an excruciating death, he deserved every second of it, but that should have been the end of it. The thing you brought back has a few scattered memories of the man it used to be, but how do you know it's not in pain? You'd keep him alive or whatever the hells he is just to protect your queen?"

"Are you in pain, Ser Gregor?" asked Qyburn amusingly.

The giant shook his head once.

"There, you see, he has no pain. In fact, he is insusceptible to it."

"He never had much brains to begin with, but you took away the little bit he had left, so now he hasn't got the wits to tell you if he's suffering."

What an incredibly private man Sandor Clegane was, to harbor such a wide array of emotions and thoughts and only reveal them when it shattered him down to his core. He wanted to kill this man before him, yet he was reprimanding the Hand for his unethical procedures in bringing the Mountain back to life for no other purpose than to be a meat shield between Cersei and anyone else. Ser Gregor meant to murder his little brother and the poor boy could not have understood why at the time, only felt the loss of family after the fact. He could not have figured out why his brother, who was supposed to support and love him, would have enough hate in his heart to instead try to snuff out his life. That was a fact Clegane had grown to understand as hate replaced what once had been brotherly affection, but as much as he wanted the man dead, he hated more what had been done to him.

"I don't believe you'll find your brother in a state to complain," said Qyburn dismissively.

"You took away the few things he lived for: raping, drinking, and killing for sport and now he kills only by command. I'm sure he's got something to complain about."

Ser Gregor apparently possessed some manner of wits still, for he raised his boot and began to press down on Clegane's kneecap. Then, a deep, throaty, thundering voice uttered the word, "Whelp."

The effect his brother's voice had on Clegane was instant. Clegane shrank back as if he had been struck with the bullwhip, bringing his arms up to his face in case Ser Gregor was of a mind to hit him.

"How extraordinary," observed Qyburn, taking no notice of Ser Gregor steadily crushing Clegane's knee underfoot.

"As eager as I know you are to be the one to cause your brother much suffering, Ser Gregor, I do need him able to stand on his own," said Cersei, her pale, pointed face catching the torchlight as she arrived. At her command, Ser Gregor stepped off of Clegane's knee and Clegane pulled it to his chest to keep it out of his brother's reach just in case he should change his mind.

Offering Clegane a waterskin that he rejected, Cersei tipped it over, spilling its contents over Clegane's boots and Jorah felt an indignant stab in that she had not offered _him_ any, for he was just as parched as Clegane.

"Do you know what your hair-raising screams reminded me of yesterday, Sandor?" asked Cersei, lost in musings of years past. "You reminded me of myself when I shrieked for the entire city to hear while bringing my boy into the world. I was so frightened and in such pain, believing that I would die on that top landing, but you did not allow me that luxury, did you? You delivered him yourself. My first son, my little black-haired son, Roster. You were there when I birthed him, Sandor, do you remember?" asked the queen distantly.

"Aye, I remember," said Clegane almost inaudibly.

"I often wonder how he might have ruled the Seven Kingdoms if he had lived, if Joffrey had been my second son. I wonder how he might have judged Ned Stark and if this war would have come to fruition if my firstborn had been allowed to live. I find myself wishing for the gods to give me back time, give me back my little boy so that we might have seen a different future."

Jorah highly doubted that the sparing of her first born would have led to a different outcome. She was the one at the heart of the plague of death that had befallen the Seven Kingdoms. If she had not married Robert, there might have been a different future, but there would be only the slightest alterations if all of her children had lived. She was a spiteful woman who relished the suffering of others and death would have come for her children because of her selfishness, no matter the intervention of the gods.

"I never felt as alone as I had after losing him. I didn't want to see anyone else. No one knew my loss. No one had been there when the boy came forth—except you, Sandor. You were the first to hold him, the only one to see me labor to bring him into the world. You understood and you said nothing because words could not console me. That is why I kept you by my side. You knew how the world worked."

Cersei twisted a gold ring inset with one large ruby around on her finger. It was far too big for her hand, which led Jorah to suspect it had belonged to another, perhaps her father or her son.

"My son did not die by your doing. His own father couldn't save him as he sprawled out in front of his wedding guests and choked on his last breath, foaming at the mouth, bleeding from the eyes. You hated him, but you never struck him, never hurt him, and it takes an incredible amount of self-discipline to do such a thing. I even struck him once, his own mother, but not you. You would have been at his side as he vomited and wept during his last moments. You would have held him, as I had, because that is what you do: you defend the weak, even those who don't deserve it. And he didn't. He didn't deserve your protection. He was a terrible boy, but I protected him because he was _my _boy. And you, Sandor, you protected Sansa Stark because she was yours. When you lay with her, you made her that."

Cersei sniffed impatiently. It was highly disturbing to see this witch of a woman display anything other than contempt, but the past she so openly shared with her Hand, the Queensguard, and Jorah was something that he suspected had remained solely between her and Clegane for the past two decades. It did not make Jorah sympathetic to all she had lost, not when he had seen Daenerys lose her husband, her child, her _khalasar_, and more, and chose to defend the people rather than make them suffer for her misfortune. Evil was planted in Cersei from a young age and no mercy from the gods could have given her a different outcome to her lonely future.

"I hurt her," Cersei continued. "I hurt her family and I turned a blind eye to the sport Joffrey made of her, and she hates me for that, which makes her my enemy. A vixen that I created has come back to finish me off, but I have something I must protect dearly now."

She cradled her hands to her belly, and what Jorah had taken for aging weight of a woman past her prime was suddenly made clear.

"A mother must protect her child. A man must protect the woman he loves. And she's yours to protect still, isn't she?"

The first bit of life that Jorah had seen since the day before came to Clegane as he lifted his head just enough to be heard. "Aye, she's mine to protect."

His response resonated deeply with Cersei who seemed saddened by it, perhaps because she had lost the devotion of the man who had claimed to love her. It was jealousy that Jorah saw, jealousy for another woman and the man who loved her so profoundly that he refused to ask for a merciful death in the hope that he might return to her.

"As it was once your job to observe those who would harm my son, so it was mine to observe those closest to him and I saw how much you loathed him. He had no idea because you fought so hard to conceal it, but I could see it. When presented with the option to display or mask your emotions, you always chose the latter and so when Euron Greyjoy threatened Sansa Stark before you, he was disappointed to see a blank face, but I knew better. I don't know how or why, but you love her and by the way she screamed for you, I know that some part of her loves you as well. Foolish child, I told her to never allow herself to love anyone, but as she was wont to do, she didn't heed me. And now it'll destroy her when you die. That is how I will end Sansa Stark and keep my child safe."

"She's used to loss. She'll bear it and keep fighting because she's a wolf. _That's_ what you created," said Clegane, giving Cersei nothing other than the strength in his voice. Such pride Jorah heard there for the Lady of Winterfell. He knew Cersei no longer believed that nothing existed between him and Lady Sansa, but she would believe that in the event of Clegane's death, it would not also mean the defeat of the woman he claimed. Lady Sansa would mourn Clegane and turn her vengeance upon Cersei with Daenerys's aid and Clegane was proud of her for it, for fighting for something more than a man and not letting her grief consume her. Just as Jorah held such high regard for Daenerys.

"Have you had enough, then, Sandor? Say the word and I will consider it. Look at me and show me that you wish to depart this world if you are ready to leave Sansa Stark behind."

It was a mark of how broken he truly was and how badly he had been beaten down that he could not even lift his head to look at her. Cersei knelt beside him, taking his face with a lover's caress and tilting it up to see him for herself. Clegane had a warrior's reflexes, a survivor's speed, he could grab her, break her neck, and have time to spit on the body before the Queensguard got to him. He would die seconds after completing the act, but he could do it.

He didn't.

Cersei had damaged him beyond reproach, and she knew it.

"Has he had enough, Your Grace?" asked Qyburn.

"Perhaps. Ser Arys, cut off Ser Jorah's left hand."

This command was so wildly delivered that even the Queensguard were taken aback, but once the initial shock wore off, Ser Arys took his halberd in hand and backed Jorah against the wall with the point of it. Ser Boros knelt down on Jorah's back, stretching his left hand out in front of him.

Clegane surged forward, far out of reach, but still trying to get close enough to Jorah to be of some help.

"There," said Cersei triumphantly. "Not yet broken at all, Qyburn. The day he refuses to come to his friend's aid is the day he has had enough. Disregard my command, Ser Arys. Ser Jorah may keep his hand yet another day."

Clegane smacked the back of his head against the brick behind him, scrunching his face up in a grimace. He had just earned himself more of the unbearable.

"Let them not say that Cersei Lannister had no sympathy at all in her heart. For your service to me in helping me deliver my son when there was no one else, Sandor Clegane, I will grant you two days of reprieve. Take this time to consider your stance on survival and if it is worth suffering for."

It was a gift granted at the most crucial time, one that gave Jorah far more of a sense of relief than it gave Clegane, for the man watched Cersei leave them as if he were watching his last link to life slip out of his grasp. He could not be happy with Cersei's stay of execution when all he had to occupy his time in between was dread of what she had in store for him next. If anything, he seemed burdened by the news.

He had no opinion to share on the matter and Jorah knew it was too soon to breach the case of Clegane's tears the night prior, so they passed what remained of the day by sleeping without the need to stand guard in expectancy of Qyburn's torch. Neither of them had slept more than an hour at a time since becoming permanent guests of the Black Cells and Jorah felt spoiled for having so much time to finally chase that feeling of being well-rested, only once he had entered that realm of deep sleep, he wanted right back out of it.

The dead gave chase, slashing at his heels as he ran from them. To slow down was to die, but the snow made for uneven ground and he stumbled. A direwolf ran alongside him, dragging him to his feet, not allowing him to die just yet, only upon closer inspection, he saw that it was not a wolf, but a giant black dog. Behind it ran the true wolf, but it was not alone as it led a pack of the beasts guarding his escape.

_Not until you have served your purpose may you fall, Jorah Mormont. Until then, you are forbidden to die._

He kept running, heart pounding in his throat, lungs about to fall away from his body and freeze in the frigid night air. He looked back and saw only eyes.

Lidless, lifeless blue eyes and a splitting cry that ripped the night in two…

Jorah came awake shaking and freezing. Clegane's boot was digging into his ankle, the only part of him he could reach, and Jorah realized the man must have been kicking him for some time to have such soreness there already.

"What…?" asked Jorah, wiping cold sweat from his brow.

"You were screaming, that's what. Woke me up. You were at it for five minutes before I could rouse you."

"I heard screaming—"

"That was _you_, you horse's arse, as I've just told you—"

"No, it didn't belong to a human," Jorah insisted. "It was—"

He heard it reverberating from above, shaking the very foundation of the Red Keep. He felt it in his ribs. Screeching. Bellowing, terrifying, rib-shattering screeching.

Dragons.


	22. Chapter 22: Burning Out, Burning Bright

**JORAH**

The castle trembled. The stone moved beneath Jorah's touch, warning of possible collapse. What a miserable fate to die crushed beneath the weight of an entire castle with nothing to see, no way of watching his own demise descend upon him. He stood up, willing his ears to create a scene through sound alone, not knowing what was happening outside the walls of the Red Keep. But he suspected what was happening: Daenerys had come for him.

His queen had sacrificed everything to come back for him, and how he loved her for it. She had sent him on this quest and was bound and determined to undo her mistake by battling Cersei head-on. That she would put aside the very thing she wanted most to have him safely returned to her marked how much and how little she had grown. She did terrible things for love: allowing _Khal_ Drogo to murder her brother when she saw that his mind was too far gone, smothering her husband to spare him a life of nothingness, but this—this was terrible only for her. It was heroic and selfless for those who saw her do it, but it required everything within her to risk never sitting the throne—for him.

She would not have done the same for Jon Snow, Jorah had no doubt. This was a different variety of love that Jon Snow could not understand or partake in, for it existed only between Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen.

"If she's attacking now, there'll be guards coming to take you," said Clegane's voice. "Those were Cersei's conditions: no action meant no reaction, but your queen's declared war for you, and Cersei promised to crucify you for it. Best be ready for when they come…"

If Daenerys was attacking the castle itself, there was a very sporting chance that every soldier within the place was at post and none could be spared to come down and deal with Jorah and it was this thin line of hope he clung to as he listened to the dragons lay waste to their targets. Their roars died out gradually, as did the noise of battle and the castle grew still in both movement and sound.

"Sounds like it stopped," mused Clegane when they had sat in silence for at the very least fifteen minutes. "Haven't heard the dragons for well over an hour now."

"Something's wrong," said Jorah. "We should have been met by someone from Cersei's end or ours. If Cersei sensed that she was going to lose the fight, she would have sent someone to cut our throats to give the victors no spoils of war. If Daenerys had won, we would be looking up into starlight right now. No, something's happened."

"I expect we'll find out soon, either way."

It was easy for Clegane to say. He did not fear for Lady Sansa because he knew she had not taken part in the battle, but attacking dragons meant Daenerys was out there in the thick of it and Jorah had no way to protect her, no way of knowing what had happened. He paced until Clegane snarled at him, he wrung his hands until they cracked, and he waited…

Lannister soldiers were the first faces they saw and Jorah's heart sank. If there had been a victor of the battle, it was not Daenerys. The only question remaining was: what were the casualties? He tried to catch a glimpse of the city outside as they passed by open arches on their way to the throne room, but he saw no lingering damage and the smoke he detected seemed to be coming from the castle itself. It was all rather anticlimactic with nothing to see for the dragons' efforts, but the battle sounded as if it had gone on for hours and Jorah felt as if he had definitely missed something crucial.

Cersei was waiting for them in the throne room, standing beside a table that had a pile of rags clumped on it. Qyburn and Euron Greyjoy flanked her, neither looking like they had lost an ounce of sleep over the night's ordeal. Jorah was at a complete loss as to what would happen next, what had happened the night prior, and why Cersei was alive to sneer at him when an attack with dragonfire should have seen her reduced to cinders. He and Clegane exchanged looks of puzzlement.

"Last night," began the Hand, "The Red Keep was put under siege by an open display of war from the Targaryen woman who called herself queen. But this castle has survived more wars than any foundation in the Seven Kingdoms and it stands in the wake of the battle."

Cersei's lips peeled back in a broad grin she could no longer conceal. "Qyburn, if you would present our guests with the results of last night's battle."

The Hand moved toward the cluster of wadded rags and pulled them aside to reveal—

A bloated corpse, stained blue and black, seaweed clinging to the once flawless white-gold hair. Eyes still open, bulging, unseeing. Face unrecognizable, indistinguishable from a long-dead cadaver. A gaping hole in her breast from where a bolt had taken her, unseated her, and felled her.

Jorah teetered, stumbling into Clegane on his way to the floor as his knees gave out. He had no feeling below his neck apart from the awful, excruciating pain in his chest as if Ser Gregor had thrust his hand into Jorah's skin, found his heart, and began to both simultaneously crush it and tug on it to wrench it out of his body. His lungs had collapsed on themselves, why was he not sobbing for breath? His brain could show him nothing, conjure no image other than the broken body of his beloved queen, why was he not bleeding from the eyes? His throat was blocked and a pitiful snivel was all that he could expel. Hot, searing tears made their way freely down his face but they were silent. His grief was quiet, like death, and so very, very cold.

Greyjoy circled Jorah, watching him, reveling in Jorah's anguish. He shoved the jagged end of a bolt at Jorah's face and there was dark purple blood, hours old and caked on from the tip to halfway down the length of the shaft. Placing the flat of the bolt to Jorah's cheek, he smeared the blood across Jorah's face.

"I shot her out of the sky like she was a pigeon looking for a place to shit," said Greyjoy, watching Jorah with glee. "And in the dead of night, no less. It was glorious to behold, the greatest and mightiest of her dragons shrieking for her as she fell from its back with a well-placed scorpion bolt to the heart. She hit the water hard and sank like a rock and we only just fished her out this morning. If you stand out on the balcony, you can still hear her beasts weep for her because they know their mother is dead. Your Dragon Queen is _dead_, Jorah Mormont."

He wouldn't get far and he would die as soon as the Queensguard came to their senses, for they wouldn't expect a prisoner as broken as he to have any fight left in him, but by he gods, he was going to try. Elbowing the men on either side of him in the groin, he launched himself forward with no other goal than to wrap his chains around Euron Greyjoy's throat and strangle him even as the Queensguard stabbed him into submission. If today was the day to die, he was going to bring the kraken bastard with him.

He never got there, not even close. Two enormous arms pinned his own to his chest and lifted him backwards and he waited to feel the Mountain's embrace decimate his body, crushing his bones into powder and rupturing his internal organs. He screamed, determined that he would look the kraken in the face as he died, only the pain he felt was not of his body but of his soul. He was still alive moments later with no signs of being murdered at the Mountain's hands and he fought back now that he had been given this second opportunity to take revenge for his queen, his love.

The wail of agony that had begun to take hold in his belly when they had first revealed her body was making its way north, billowing in his chest to build momentum, and finally expelling from his throat in a sound that he could not hear because of the voice speaking directly to him from behind.

"Don't," said Sandor Clegane in his ear, his voice heavy with remorse and the effort of holding Jorah back. "Just don't."

Euron Greyjoy let out grating laughter at Jorah's sorrow, inviting him to take up a knife that the kraken offered to him in a duel to the death. Jorah wanted to enter that duel and shove the knife deep into the bastard's throat, but Clegane would not loosen his hold and after much squirming to no avail, Jorah surrendered his strength. Clegane set him down on his knees but kept a firm grasp on one shoulder in case his bloodlust returned.

"Ever the loyal dog, protecting the weak and the worthless," observed Cersei.

"Enough," said Clegane. "Your enemies didn't bring the corpses of your children before you and taunt you with them and this man has never done you harm. Leave him be."

"Of course, he needs time to come to terms with his fate. His queen launched an attack in the dead of night to conceal herself, hoping to take the castle by force. Her dragons burned many brave men who defended the keep, but I suspected such an attempt and had every scorpion positioned to the skies for her. She knew that I promised her individual pieces of you, Ser Jorah, if she attacked, but with her corpse before me, I see no need to deliver you to what remains of the Northern rebels. You will live out the rest of your days in the Black Cells, though those days may be cut short if you displease me, for the armor your queen gave you is something you no longer possess. Take them back. We are finished for the day."

He couldn't walk and so they dragged him, his knees scraping along the floor with them taking no care to spare him the pain, but he hardly felt it as they descended into the dungeons once again. Before they could bind him to his place at the wall, Jorah saw an opening and flew at Clegane. He knew it to be misplaced rage, for it was not the man's fault that Daenerys had fallen, but Clegane had stolen Jorah's one chance for vengeance, denied him his heart's desire, and Jorah needed someone to atone for something.

Jorah hit him hard but felt his knuckles fracture when they made contact with Clegane's jaw.

"You had no right!" he hollered.

Clegane caught his next blow and swept his legs out from under him, kneeling on his chest. "Aye, you're right, but I did it anyway. Live with it."

Seeing that what had promised to be a hearty brawl had dissolved into nothing, the Queensguard returned them to their positions and left them in the pitch of night.

Now would be the time to let out a bitter cry and let his emotions run free where no one could see him. It was where Clegane had given in to the despair; it could serve the same purpose for Jorah, but the rest of his tears would not come, leaving him feeling clogged and weary with no outlet for his grief to drain itself.

With the evening meal came Qyburn to once again apply the salve to Clegane and Clegane leaned forward at the knees like a model patient, keeping watch over Jorah who could not stomach one morsel of supper. When they found themselves alone, Clegane murmured, "Are you going to eat or not?"

"I'm not hungry," said Jorah, surprised that he was able to speak at all.

"Neither am I, but you're the one who's determined that both've us should live, so you'd better force it down."

"I _was_ determined," Jorah corrected.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. You're going to give up because your woman's dead? Cersei told her what she'd be facing if she tried to rescue you and she said, 'fuck it', and came for you all the same, died doing it, and left behind what? What are you now without your queen, Mormont?"

"I—"

"What would she be, if she watched you die and saw your body in the aftermath?"

_She would be strong. She would still be the woman she was._

"But she was more than I am, more than I ever could be."

"What was her last command to you? Try to do that, at least, then maybe you won't feel so worthless," suggested Clegane in a very unhelpful manner.

"Her last command was to protect you," said Jorah ploddingly.

"Then fuck it. Flounder in self-pity instead."

That was not quite the reaction Jorah expected from Clegane after confessing that Daenerys's last order was to serve as Clegane's companion, but then again, subtlety was wasted on the man, as were the finer points of unwavering loyalty.

"I should have been there to protect her," said Jorah, feeling himself topple into an emotionless abyss at the admittance of his failure.

"She fell out of the fucking sky after she took a bolt through the heart, how did you expect to protect her from that?" admonished Clegane. "Act as a fucking cushion for her to land on?"

_Drogon would never allow me to fall_, she had said. And she had proven it, launching herself into the air to be scooped up and rescued by her favored dragon. The beast had a powerful connection with his mother; he would not have allowed her to come to such harm. Jorah could not bring himself to believe that a bolt had killed the last Targaryen, or at least, the last Targaryen known to the people. Something else had to have happened, for the gods would not let a man like Euron Greyjoy take the credit for killing the Mother of Dragons.

And the body, white-blonde hair, mucky clothes, contorted face...only the eyes looked like they had belonged to his queen, but they had been bloodshot and veiled with no hint at their true color. How could she have looked so utterly decomposed in a matter of hours? How could he be sure that had been her? If Cersei wanted him to believe it, she could have done any number of things to an already decaying body, disguised it by making it unidentifiable apart from one or two traits that would fool him into thinking it was Daenerys...

Clegane would chide him for entertaining the idea that Cersei would go to such trouble just to fool him.

"You listening to me, Mormont?"

"Something happened and Drogon was unable to protect her. When she sits—when she sat his back, his head protected the bulk of her. The bolt should never have reached her."

"But it did, because as magical of beasts as they are, dragons are still animals and even they aren't smart enough to outmaneuver dozens of scorpion bolts being fired in the dead of night. Your queen thought she was immortal as long as she sat the dragon's back."

"Not another word, Clegane or by the gods, I swear I'll throttle you with my own chains."

"I asked you to do that before but you can't reach me, so save your threats."

"You are being deliberately cruel. I don't ask for your sympathy, but don't mock me or her."

"You're a fool and an idiot if you think that this lecture serves as mockery, knight. And I'm not that much of a fucking bastard to taunt a man when he has nothing left, but you need to see this situation for what it is and not for what it might have been. You weren't with her and you couldn't have been because she ordered you away and even if you had been in the ranks instead of in this cell, you would have been on the ground, not on the dragon with her. And if by some mad chance you _had_ been on the dragon with her, the bolt would have gone through her all the same and you wouldn't have been able to stop it."

"She would have had no need to fly if I had been by her side—"

"She would have. To take the city, she needed those dragons and she would have been on the black and red one and Cersei would have had every scorpion fired at her in broad daylight as the battle waged on below and if she hadn't taken a bolt to the heart, her dragon would have. She was overly confident in those beasts, believed both them and herself untouchable from other manmade weapons, and that's what killed her, not you. Aye, she came for you because she loved you, but she had a lucky man's fearlessness and that made her reckless. She was a woman, not a goddess, and she's dead now, so you live with that or you don't, but if you can only live for her, think about what she would say to you if you choose to curl up and die now."

She would shame him for his weakness. She had become the dragon when she watched her brother die and from that moment on, she would not allow herself to do nothing when she had the power of breath and life within her. As long as she was alive with a beating heart, she had the ability to do _something_, and she would scold Jorah to no end if she saw his heart's desire now in wanting nothing more than to die where he sat to be with her again.

What, then, was he to do? His purpose had been to serve her, love her unrequitedly, and now he could do neither. Unless he took her last command to heart and made it his life's new purpose—bring Sandor Clegane back to Lady Sansa. Clegane wouldn't allow him to, but since when did Jorah need the man's permission to do what his queen had commanded of him?

_Until we are reunited then, my brave one._

Their reunion would be postponed for now, until Jorah had done his last duty to her. He would see Clegane returned to the woman he loved and settle for nothing less because it was what his queen wanted, what this man deserved, and what Jorah had left to give.

/ /

Sleep would not come and now he and Clegane both sat awake, dreading the coming of the second dawn after the fall of Daenerys Targaryen. They had nothing to occupy their time with except thoughts of what Cersei might be planning to subject Clegane to and it was now entirely Jorah's problem as well, for if Clegane could not survive it, Jorah could not go the halls of his forbearers in peace. Two days' respite was nothing but time to dwell on what Cersei had concocted for them and Jorah fully understood that as he tried to find at least an hour of sleep before Qyburn came for them.

Luck was against him and he made the familiar trudging trek to the throne room all but tripping over his own feet, emotionally spent, mentally drained, and physically exhausted. So great was his weariness that he did not even notice how the great hall had been redecorated until Cersei made some grand preamble about their purpose for the day.

"In honor of House Targaryen, yet another family to join in the scattered winds of extinction, this hall will once again play host to the madness that the whole line of them were known for. In this very room, Lord Rickard Stark was burned alive within his own armor, cooked like a tender slab of meat while his son, Brandon Stark, was placed in a stranglehold device to watch his father burn or kill himself trying to reach a sword just out of reach. Behold, the shattering end of Robert's Rebellion reborn."

There stood the fire pit with ropes dangling above it, suspended from the rafters high above. There were enough ropes to support the heaviest and largest of men. Beside the pit was a cleverly crafted noose that would strangle its victim by tightening with any movement. Jorah did not have to guess which of the two positions he would be assuming.

His fatigue evaporated to be replaced with a warrior's battle instincts as he heard Clegane say a loud, clear, "No," looking as if he were about to make water and he didn't seem to give a damn.

"Ser Gregor, your assistance will be required here," said Cersei with a careless beckon and the Mountain stomped forth to take the front of Clegane's tunic and begin to drag him toward the ropes.

"No," said Clegane again, this time in more of a plea. He dug his heels into the floor and it took the combined effort of every Queensguard to budge him as he leaned back, thrashing and scrambling like a caged and cornered rat. "Gods—damn—you—all—_no_!" he hollered, throwing himself to the floor and seeking to scuttle backwards even with Ser Gregor and Ser Osmund each hauling him effortlessly across the floor. "Get your fucking hands off me! Get off!" His hands found a crack in the marble floor and he dug his fingernails in, pulling himself away with the pathetic, panicked breaths of a man who knew what was coming for him and decided to fight it regardless.

Ser Arys and Ser Boros were toying with him now, allowing him to crawl just far enough to give him hope that they would not grab him again before stomping down on his back and lifting him with the help of the rest of the Queensguard. Clegane's fingertips were bleeding from cracked nails and his newly grown ones had snapped as well. He made his way to his knees and Ser Preston kicked him over onto his wounded back where he yelped. The Queensguard were suddenly met with what might as well have been an army of limbs for the speed and strength with which Clegane flayed his arms, swatting, clawing, and punching.

The charade was put to an end as Ser Gregor brought one heavy fist down on his brother's gut and Clegane vomited with the impact, allowing the Queensguard to secure him in unison. Clegane found Jorah through the tangle of legs as the knights carried him to the pit.

_He thinks he's going to die. He's looking to me as the last thing he sees._

But Cersei had made Clegane a vow to end him only when he had nothing left to give, but by the gods, he was giving everything right now to escape that which awaited him. It might as well have been the first day of their imprisonment when Clegane was yet whole and untouched for the struggle he maintained. Even with five men and a Mountain holding him down, Clegane was a man unmatched for strength.

They bound his wrists above him, tied more rope to each ankle, and a fair portion at his waist, immobilizing him. The rafters above groaned with his weight, but they had stood the test of time and carried worse and far heavier than Clegane. With four men on the ropes, Clegane was hoisted into the air directly above the pit, still lashing out and shrieking to be released.

The main attention was on Clegane, leaving Lannister soldiers to secure Jorah into the stranglehold device. A knotted cord around his shoulders, hands bound behind him, weighted down with boulders which prevented him from rising. The cord would tighten with every movement, tempting him toward the prize, and what was the prize? A sword placed just out of reach.

What purpose did the sword serve if Cersei planned to cut Clegane down after she had had her fulfillment of joy in tormenting him? Surely, _surely_ she didn't plan to-?

"Light the pit," commanded Qyburn and Ser Preston put a flint to the tip of his sword, sparking life to the gathering of dry twigs.

If Jorah believed he had never heard a man scream as badly as Clegane had when Jorah peeled the flesh from his back with the whip, he was sorely mistaken. The sound he made now was not one of a living man, reaching an octave almost as shattering as that of their captured wight, calling for reinforcements. It was the sound of absolute unadulterated terror.

The Queensguard began to lower Clegane over the fire with the heat already making a distorted vision on the air. Clegane tried to tuck his legs up out of reach of the eager licking flames below, but Ser Gregor alone commanded the ropes bound to Clegane's ankles and he pulled them taut to stretch his brother out.

Jorah hoped for a rip in Clegane's vocal cords, if only to spare them all of his screaming. Unlike with the whip, the man could not fall unconscious. One did not so easily escape being burned alive.

Ser Gregor slackened his ropes and Ser Boros and Ser Osmund put more weight into theirs, leveling Clegane's body out flat above the pit to roast him like a suckling pig. A straight view down into the fire, eyes burning from the smoke, inhaling great heaps of it, the scent of his own cooking flesh: it was all a cruel reminder of his brother's last gift to him, the gift that had set him on this path to fear fire as much as the man who had given him that fear.

"Sandor, look at me!" hollered Jorah, straightening his posture as much as he dared, but feeling the noose about his neck tighten all the same.

He could see the man trying to find him, but the fire burned too close to his face now to risk keeping his eyes open. All Jorah had to offer him was his voice, but he couldn't make a dent in Clegane's hair-raising screams. On and on the moments dragged with no signs from Cersei of letting up until Jorah felt a bitter coldness wash over him despite the heat of the room causing him to break out in sweat. Had he poorly misjudged her intentions? Did she mean for this—the pit, the ropes, the fire—to be Clegane's end? And what a horrid end it would be.

She was waiting to hear Clegane beg, but he would not beg. He would scream, but he would not beg them to stop. His screams would only cease if Jorah was able to make them, which would involve cutting him free. The sword was a real object, _the _object of the game Cersei had made Jorah a player in. An unwilling player, but a player nonetheless, and as he considered how he might outmaneuver the stranglehold, he sensed her watching him.

She wanted him to reach for it, strain at the noose until it pressed unforgivingly against his windpipe and claim after that he had taken his own life. How, then, would Clegane fare on his own? The abandonment would drive him mad, if the flames hadn't already, if Cersei planned to let him down.

He could do nothing. He was nothing. He would kneel here and listen to his friend burn alive or throttle himself trying to break Clegane free. Two more victims of a mad ruler's reign. Jorah bowed his head and let the tears fall through closed eyes.

If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost liken Clegane's screams to a howl, a desolate howl of an animal more wild than a dog.

_The wolf cries, lost and wounded, for its pack to come to its aid._

What a fitting thing to listen to, the sound of the North as Jorah felt himself falling forward to reach for the sword…

"Extinguish the fire and let him down," said Cersei. "I want him broiled, not burned."

Jorah caught himself before the stranglehold closed forever around his throat and perked his head up, not daring to believe it. Soldiers threw bucketfuls of water onto the pit, dousing the flames and filling the throne room with even more smoke. The Queensguard lowered Clegane bits at a time, coordinating to set him down on his feet, but Ser Gregor let go of the ropes altogether and the rest of the men could not hold him, causing Clegane to hit the ground hard on his stomach where he lay and did not move.

Ser Gregor held his brother by the back of the breeches, dragging him to Cersei, planting his knees on the floor, and lifting his head by his bangs for the queen to examine him. Whatever she saw displeased her and she shook her head.

"Bring fresh wood, adjust the ropes, and switch them."

Foolishly, bravely, Clegane made the tiniest movement in Jorah's direction, more of a distressed expression working its way onto his beet-red face to betray him. _The day he refuses to come to his friend's aid is the day he has had enough. _And he could not even do that, after this soul-destroying defacement to his mental stability, he could not help himself even though Cersei had already played this trick on him.

Except this time, it was no trick.

Jorah found himself removed from the stranglehold and bound where Clegane had been. A new fire had been lit, the Queensguard were heaving, lifting him into the air, and Clegane was watching him with the knotted cord at his neck. _Now_ Jorah was truly afraid of how this day might end. He had known that there was no saving Clegane and had waited until the last possible second to go for the sword, but Clegane was not in his right mind and would reach for it at any point once Jorah started to scream.

It was therefore imperative that Jorah not scream.

_Look away_, he mouthed to Clegane as he felt the fire tickling the bottom of his boots.

But the man was a menace to himself, determined to watch because that was what Jorah had had to do. He would not look away, even if the sight drove him to throw himself forward for the sword and thus, strangle himself.

Jorah felt the heat rising, smelled cooking flesh, and hoped it wasn't his own.

_Take heart, my brave bear, it is not your time._

Jorah's heart cried out for his queen, clutching to her voice in his head as if only it existed.

_This is your redemption, my son. This is your payment for passage to join me. _

He had hoped that his father would have seen new promise in him when Jorah allied himself with Daenerys, but he suspected that he would never know his father's views on the matter until they were reunited in the heavens of the gods. To hear him now, Jorah knew it was not wishful thinking or his mind's desperate attempt to gather comfort to confront the flames. His father had been granted this one moment to communicate with him and Jorah felt the blood of the North rising within him.

_Your fate is bound to this man. For as long as he needs you, you will be there for him._

He opened his eyes, looking straight through the flames to see Clegane still watching him, waiting for signs of distress that would cue him to fight to reach the sword. Jorah gave him no such inclination. He made no sound, biting so deeply down into his bottom lip that blood had completely coated his jaw as the heat began to roast him slowly from the outside in.

He listened to his father and his queen's words in his head, embracing the fire as he waited for Cersei to make the call.

Less than pleased with his obvious lack of apparent pain, Cersei did not leave him on the ropes for long when she saw that Jorah would not make a sound to goad Clegane into action. Jorah was lowered, cut free, and then had thread sewn into his bottom lip to seal the grievous wound he had self-inflicted during which Clegane was also released from the throttling device.

Cersei had ordered that they receive light after their ordeal, the better to look upon each other and wish for death as they viewed the other's hardships. A torch was the worst thing Cersei could have done to Clegane—to both of them—following their time dangling above the fires today. It had been positioned close to Clegane, above and to the right of his head and while Jorah was at liberty to move about more freely, Clegane had been returned to his former shackled self, able to lay down, unable to move more than a foot from where he sat. There was no escaping the torch's glow, but Clegane was still doing his damndest to lean as far away from it as possible, hands pressed over his head as if he were expecting the thing to start shooting at him.

He sat mumbling incoherently, trapped in memories that Jorah could not breach, for he had not been there. Long minutes spent watching the man, waiting for a sign of response from him, and Jorah could understand what drove men to madness within these cells. Even with company, Clegane was teetering on the verge of taking a nose-long dive into the realm of permanent lunacy.

"Mormont…help me."

It was not Clegane's voice that spoke in hardly more than a whisper. It was someone else, someone younger. A child. He curled inward with his knees huddled at his chest, making himself as small as possible, a feat he was failing spectacularly at, given his size.

"Tell me how," prompted Jorah. "Tell what to do."

"I'm not going through one more second of that," Clegane told Jorah resolutely with some of the gruffness returning to his voice. "I can't."

"How am I supposed to help you, then?"

"You could kill me. You have to kill me." Words delivered as if they carried the weight of a thousand bricks each. Clegane feared death, as any and all men did, but after the fire, he could not bring himself to hold out hope for an absolution that would not come. He wished for death, an end to everything, to escape the flame that he feared more.

Jorah shook his head. "You will not die by my hands—"

"Fuck you, you gutless, useless bitch!" Clegane's voice cracked, spittle flew from his mouth, and he looked positively deranged. His hand flew out to toss a handful of his shackles at Jorah in a complete turn-around from what moments before had been a frightened boy in a man's body. "I can't do this any longer, do you hear me? I can't fucking do it. Please, Mormont…" he sobbed and he had no reservations about being caught in the act for Jorah to see. His pain was beyond caring now.

Yes, Jorah had been right to assume that Clegane would not beg Cersei or Qyburn or Ser Gregor for mercy, but he had been wrong to assume that Clegane would not beg at all. It was a painful thing to hear, for the plea to fall from Clegane's lips when Jorah had associated the man with the divine, comparing him to the gods themselves: immortal, unable to die, resilient.

"You want to protect me?" asked Clegane. "Because your queen told you to, because you want to, because you give a damn about what happens to me. If you want to protect me, if you truly fucking care, please…please kill me."

Jorah crawled to him, waiting for Clegane to shy away, but Jorah's was the only friendly touch he had in this dungeon and he could see it coming, so he did not admonish it. Carefully, painstakingly slowly, Jorah rested his hand on Clegane's knee, for he felt that going further to try and grab the man's arm was too invasive.

There was no purpose in drawing out his suffering. It would take but a few moments and he could strangle his friend. Cersei had allowed them light and slack on their chains, perhaps for this very purpose. She was leaving the option on how to die to the two of them, if Clegane had arrived at this conclusion for himself. Jorah could say a prayer for him, hoping that he would find life again wherever it was the gods dwelled, and be at peace with that decision—except that it would leave him alone to live out the remainder of the war lost in the dealings of his own mind, his shortcomings and failures.

He chose to be a coward and the gods might damn him for it, but he would answer for this sin soon enough.

"One more day, Clegane. If you can bear it just one day longer, I give you my word that I'll take the sword from whichever Queensguard comes down that corridor and drive it through your heart when he tries to take you. On my honor as the man who would have seen our mission through to the end, I will give you this mercy one day from now."

"I can't—"

"One single day, Sandor."

The answer he received was Clegane turning away from him to rest his head against the wall, once again blocking himself off from being reached by any means.

/ /

Jorah was preparing his hands to grasp the sword of whichever Queensguard made that long walk toward them with the intent to unchain Clegane first. They had not yet received resistance from Jorah and would therefore not expect it when, after they had unbound him as well, he took one of their swords in an unwavering grip, stepped forward, and drove the point through Clegane's chest. Then, Jorah would be free to die as he pleased. If his fate was bound to Clegane and Clegane wished for death, Jorah would not be the one to deny him. He could not lead a broken man, a man all but dead in name back to the woman who claimed him. Clegane would be empty to Lady Sansa and she would shatter to see him this way. Both of them deserved better and though Jorah had tried his best, he could not leave the man to endure any longer.

If he truly cared, as Clegane had said, he would do what was best for the man pleading and not for himself. Jorah gave a damn, and he had to consider what Clegane would be willing to do for him if their situations were reversed. Clegane would put him to the sword without hesitation because the man understood dying wishes, the value of life, and the lack of purpose in prolonging it.

The man desired release, eternal rest, lightness in the dark-

"Clegane, there's light coming from the other side."

He had watched it growing, not making sense of it as he sat consumed in his thoughts and decisions, but it was most assuredly a light headed in their direction, not from the way Qyburn and the Queensguard always arrived, but from the opposite end, deeper into the cells. Deciding that he had finally gone blind or else his mind had collapsed on itself, Jorah found himself chuckling at the very idea. Light couldn't come from nothing.

"Seven—fucking—hells," breathed Clegane, squinting at the figure emerging from the blackness.

Arya Stark. Battle-ready, clad in a commoner's garb with her needle-sword in one hand and a torch in the other.

"Dammit all to hells, girl, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one in your family? Just what the fuck are you doing here?" asked Clegane, sounding annoyed almost as if he didn't quite believe the girl was here, but also frustrated with her for coming back for them when Clegane's last act as a free man had been to give her a window of escape.

Arya held the torch aloft, kneeling to get a closer look at Clegane and he threw her from him to distance himself from the light in her hands. "Don't hold that fucking thing near me," he rasped as she picked herself up looking almost wounded in expression.

He scowled at her, not wanting to be scrutinized by a child, but he had been laid bare before Jorah, a man who had been a stranger to him at the beginning of their imprisonment. He knew Arya well and should have been used to her gaze by now, but if he was, he didn't act the part. He hid his face against the wall and Arya finally drew back.

"What have they done to him?" she asked Jorah.

"Better to ask what they haven't done," said Jorah. "They did their best to break him. And in some things, he won't be the same. You came too late to save all of him."

"I've been trying for weeks," said the girl defensively. "I wore my faces, I found my way inside the castle several times, but I couldn't find the two of you."

"I place no blame on you, child," said Jorah quickly to staunch her flow of excuses. "And I am certain he doesn't, either. You're here now, which is more than either of us could hope for, but the fact remains that Cersei hurt him, to some extent, beyond reproach. He'd given up mere hours ago and we were just waiting…"

Arya turned her gaze to Clegane, hurt and resentful. "He told you to kill him."

"He asked me," Jorah corrected. Clegane had begged, but the girl didn't need to know that. "I gave him my word that I would."

"You won't. We're going, now."

"Now? He can't, Arya. He was whipped half to death mere days ago—"

"Yes, I know. I saw."

The serving girl…she _had _been there…

"Then you know that he's in no fit state to be escaping."

"When the two of you have stopped talking about me like I can't fucking hear you, I'm ready," said Clegane, offering up his bound wrists to Arya. She took a lockpicking set from within her cloak and set to work on his shackles. No novice to the trade, she made off with the bindings in record time and Clegane flexed his hands once they had been freed. Like Jorah, he had deep welts around his wrists where various types of restraints had cut into him after countless days and nights. The ankle shackles followed, then the iron collar at his throat and he stood up in his haste to be rid of the damned things forever, stepping far away and into the shadows with a look akin to indecision on his face.

As Arya set about to freeing Jorah, he understood the mixed emotions Clegane must have been experiencing. This spot on the floor had been the only thing that belonged to him over the course of the last—was it weeks, or months? His moldy straw bed, his patch of stone, his shackles. It was all he knew for certain, this, and that Jorah would be bound across from him. Freedom did not come so easily to those whose minds were yet stuck in a limbo. Often, those who were given their liberty scampered back into the embrace of captivity because it was safer knowing bondage than not knowing what awaited beyond the chains.

"We have to move quickly; they'll be coming for you," said Arya, taking up the torch again to lead the way. "Jon's led the armies against the city, which means Cersei will have already sent men to deal with the both of you. When they find you gone, they'll know to look deeper."

"And if they do find us, we are expected to hold them off how?" asked Jorah.

"I've hidden weapons close to where I came in, through a trapdoor in the back of a tavern. Lord Varys and Ser Jaime showed me how to get in and how to navigate the Black Cells, but even then, it's taken me ages to get to you."

She knew the way, pausing only once or twice to consult a neatly drawn map and make the correct turn. The ceiling sloped and Jorah bent steep to avoid knocking his head against it. Behind him, Clegane nearly had to squat to make it through the narrow passageway. It seemed that they descended forever, well on into the heart of the earth and Jorah figured they must have been several miles underground with how difficult it was to breathe, but then the channel leveled out and continued on straight ahead for just as long. Marveling that it must have taken Arya hours to reach them and appreciating how difficult it had to have been to even navigate her way without being lost forever in the dark, Jorah commended her.

"Willingly going into the Black Cells with nothing but an unproven map is no small feat. Greater men would shirk at the task."

"Greater men would be trying to get out. I was trying to get in."

"Your sister put you up to this," said Clegane, speaking for the first time since leaving their cell.

"I volunteered," said Arya shortly. "Sansa gave the order for Ser Jaime to escort me into the city and stand guard outside the exit while Lord Varys drew up this map. And…just here, I have your weapons for you."

She handed Jorah a sword very similar to his own with the same leveled weight, able to be wielded with one hand or two, and two knives of equal length. For Clegane, there was a dagger and a much heavier, longer sword, but one that a man of his size should have no trouble using—if Clegane could still use it and by the way his mangled, still bloodied fingertips were trying to find a comfortable hold on it, he _couldn't_ use it.

"We're not far now, but both of you need to be prepared to fight your way through the city. Be ready to face Lannister soldiers, Gold Cloaks, the Golden Company, and rampaging elephants."

Jorah was ready to face none of that and knew Clegane was in even less of a state to be battling anything smaller than an infant, but they had come this far and the option to run into open combat or to go back and wait for the fighting to be over. One look at Clegane confirmed Jorah's own reservations: they had had enough of the darkness.

Another twenty minutes and finally, they came to a series of steps carved into the soft earth of the tunnel. Arya climbed up two of them and pounded her fist against a trapdoor in the ceiling twice, then once, then three times with a pause in between. If she had been waiting for someone to lift the thing from the top, she was in for disappointment, for nothing happened and she cursed.

"I'll kill him if I see the bastard," she vowed. "Ser Jaime was supposed to lift the door. He's supposed to be right up there, waiting for us but he'll have gone to find his sister, just like Sansa suspected he would. I'll kill the traitor for this, see if I don't."

"And why do you need him to lift the door?" asked Jorah.

"Because it's a solid foot of heavy wood reinforced with sandstone to help conceal it. Just you try and lift it from this end—"

"Move," said Clegane, setting his hands and shoulders against the trapdoor and pushing upward using the muscles in his legs. His brow pulled together in concentration and he grunted with the exertion. Jorah would not have thought ill of him if he could not lift the thing after being underfed for weeks and losing much of his muscle mass. There were precious few times in his life he had been astounded into silence: the birth of the dragons, the burning of the _dosh khaleen, _the arrival of Daenerys and the dragons north of the Wall. This made an even four such instances as dust rained down on them and working his face into a dog's snarl, Clegane pushed the door open, throwing the flap with such force that it bounced when it hit the floor above.

Panting heavily and looking slightly green, Clegane took hold of Arya and tossed her up first, then helped Jorah mount the uneven steps before climbing out last and shutting the escape hatch with a rumbling finality.

"He's not here," said Arya, checking the room and then rushing to the door that led into the front of the tavern. "And it's empty out there."

It was not entirely odd for a tavern to be empty if a city was under siege, for the people who remained outside the Red Keep's inner wall would be seeking shelter with their families in the safest, most hidden places and a tavern was not ideal to avoid pillaging and raping. But it was not due to attacking enemy forces that the tavern was abandoned: it was for what awaited them outside.

The city burned.

Not with dragonfire, but with blistering, eerie green flames that rose higher into the night sky with every victim they claimed. Bodies everywhere, bodies reduced to half-formed bones and ash.

Wildfire. The crazed woman had made certain that if she could not have her kingdom, no one could, and in an effort to discourage the Northern forces from searching for her, she had ordered the city be put to the torch, the unforgivable torch of an eternal fire of green.

Clegane backed into the doorway from which they had just come. Before their imprisonment, he might have been able to brave the fire but now, now he did not stand a chance in all seven hells.

Jorah took the front of Clegane's tunic and slapped him across the face. Gentle touches would not do in a time such as this. "Look at me," he shouted over the screams of someone burning alive not ten feet away. "Sandor, look at me, damn you!"

Frightened eyes, a child's eyes, stared back at him.

"You'll not burn this night, I promise you. Stay close to me." He touched Arya's shoulder, instructing her to lead on from here. "Where to now?"

"I don't know," said the girl helplessly. "The fire wasn't part of the plan and Ser Jaime was supposed to be here to help. I don't know the city as well as he does."

"The bay," said Clegane grimly. "We're not going through, so the best way is around. Head for the Blackwater."

"I don't know where that is," said Arya with further aggravation.

"Neither do I," said Jorah, and with nearly every building going up in flames, he had no markers to guide his way. Only Clegane would know the way, for he had lived these streets for over half of his life, but Clegane was in no fit state to lead them anywhere.

Jorah watched a riderless Dothraki horse plow through the street in front of him with its saddle on fire. He stepped out, away from the tavern with his sword clutched in both hands. "Point the way, Clegane. I'll do the rest."

Clegane examined the three paths open to them and decided firmly on the far left. Then he turned to Arya, grabbing her upper arm urgently. "You remember the last battle we were in?"

"Vividly," said the girl.

"This time, you stay with me."

Weight on Jorah's shoulder told him that Clegane had taken hold of him, relying on him to see them through the burning city. His purpose had been returned to him, his chance restored.

_Lead them on, brave one_.

With Clegane clutching onto him, with his own heart pounding in his ears, Jorah led on.

/

**|AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been a bit under the weather, writing bit by bit to get this bridge chapter cranked out. This is (hopefully) the last chapter that will be slow-coming as we enter Act III. Prepare yourselves.|**


	23. Chapter 23: The Pack

**SANDOR**

He kept his eyes cast down, focused on the torn rim of Mormont's tunic as the knight guided him through the fiery city. Sandor could feel heat on all sides, just out of reach of him, but he dared not look up unless Mormont asked him to direct him down the proper path. The girl followed so closely behind him that she continuously stepped on his heels, but he didn't tell her off for it; it let him know she was close. At every turn, he stuck his hand out behind him and she would take hold of his sleeve for a moment to reassure him that she was still there. When the wildfire from two separate sources joined into an explosion that made the very ground impossible to walk on from its trembling, the three of them would drop, kneel, and wait for the tremors to end. Every time, Mormont would find Sandor's arm and hold on while the girl put her hand on the small of his back, trying to calm him through touch alone.

Sandor was not accustomed to having people cater to him and care for him in such a tender manner. He was unfamiliar with the concept of having anyone in his presence to comfort him in times of pain and fear, yet his assigned traveling companions were doing everything they possibly could to calm him through the storm. Sandor could not have found the words to express his gratitude to them even if he had wanted to.

Mormont slowed to a stop in front of him, looking left, right, and then skyward. The ground shuddered once again, but Mormont stood his ground, his gaze still turned to the night sky and against his better judgment, Sandor looked up as well. The dragons were circling above, only one of them was having difficulty staying in flight. The red and black one made its rounds closer and closer to the city rooftops as its brother called out to it.

"Drogon," said Mormont brokenly.

The dragon took a whirlwind dive of an almost beautiful nature, pulling up at the last second to skim across several thatched roofs. The distorted view through the smoke and darkness brought question to the accuracy of Sandor's guess, but he could have sworn that he saw no less than seven bolts impaled in the dragon's body.

"She didn't take that bolt," said Mormont, though he was not speaking to anyone as he watched the dragon try to gain altitude.

Sandor saw the remains of a cobbler's shop to their left and pinpointed their position, tugging at Mormont's sleeve to get him moving. "We're still far off yet from the bay. Make a right here."

Transfixed on the sky, Mormont had to be shaken back into his senses and then he seemed angry at his lapse in concentration, marching on but almost immediately backing into Sandor and pushing both him and the girl off of the street as an enormous, trunked creature came rampaging toward them with its rider powerless to contain it. Sandor watched the war elephant crash through a palisade, desperately trying to shake sparks of wildfire off of its rough, cracked skin. When the beast had gone, Mormont resumed their pace, but they had not made it another fifteen feet when they crossed paths at the most inopportune moment with the royal procession.

Greenfield and Oakheart were at the front, Qyburn just behind, followed by Euron Greyjoy, Swann, Gregor, Cersei, and at the rear, Kettleblack and Blount. On all sides were a host of Lannister soldiers, acting as a meat shield to any approaching Dothraki riders or Unsullied.

Sandor, Mormont, and the girl had taken the other party by surprise, which was the only reason they were still alive, but Sandor didn't wait for the Queensguard to come to their senses. He took his sword in both hands, feeling its welcome weight, but doubting his ability to put it to good use. If he could not fight now, when it was most crucial, he had to run.

The soldiers surged forward, but before any of them could match blades, Sandor felt a rush of heated wind from above and held out his arms to stop Mormont and the girl. Five soldiers were instantly flattened as the black and red dragon landed ungracefully in the street, shaking its wings to rid itself of the scorpion bolts stuck in its soft sinew. Its eyes found Mormont and it made a noise of protest, asking for help.

Mormont had not even a second of hesitation as he rushed to the dragon's left wing and grabbed hold of the bolt shaft, tugging hard to pull it from the tendon. The girl ducked under the wing and went to pull out another embedded in its hind leg. Sandor, however, saw the rest of the disposable Lannister guards rushing the dragon, driving their spearpoints into whichever bit of the beast they could reach. The dragon reared its head in pain and then swiped two of the unfortunate bastards right off of the street, cutting both in half at the waist in its jaws. Sandor moved around the dragon, blocking off Oakheart as the fool ran in to deliver a blow at the beast's unprotected underbelly. Oakheart blocked Sandor's offensive attack, eyes growing wide beneath his helm at Sandor's unexpected strength, but this was a surprise tactic that would only work once and Sandor had to take full advantage of it while he had the time.

Sandor took a hand off of his sword to find his dagger at his belt and stuck the small blade into the vulnerable skin between the helm and the breastplate, opening up Oakheart from shoulder to shoulder. The dragon's right wing stuffed Sandor behind it and he was nearly blindsided by another bolt shaft, ducking low to avoid it and then pulling it out but as he did so, he saw through a rip in the dragon's wing that the rest of the Queensguard were taking up the fallen soldiers' spears and launching them in full force.

Had the dragon been in peak condition, the matter of a few spears would have had close to no effect on it, but it was already so wounded that it took the hits hard. It could not even summon its easiest weapon: fire. Kettleblack took a run at the beast with two spears in hand and Sandor feared the dragon would not see the attack coming, so he did something quite brilliant and idiotic in chucking his sword at the knight to make noise exactly where the dragon needed to hear it. As his sword clanged harmlessly against Kettleblack's armor, the dragon pinpointed its next target and brought its foot smashing down on the knight.

"Drogon, _sōves_!"cried Mormont, and the dragon trampled nearly half of the block to get its running start, but even then, it was bleeding great droplets of blood the size of shields. After several failed tries, the dragon was airborne, but struggling to stay so.

Sandor ran to where his sword lay in the dust and backed himself onto the pile of dead Lannister soldiers to create uneven terrain between himself and what remained of the Queensguard: Greenfield, Blount, Swann, and Gregor. And Greyjoy. Five against three, and those were the very best odds they were going to get, for the dragon had given them nearly everything it had left to give.

"Protect your queen," said the Hand, and Greenfield, Blount, and Swann ran at them. Swann was quickest and got to the girl first but she easily bent backwards at the waist to avoid his swipe at her and moved out of his range to make him follow her. Blount and Greenfield reached Sandor and Mormont at the same time and Sandor felt so out of practice blocking Blount's attack that it made his arms tremble to take the brunt of the other man's offensive move. It should have been easy work, ending the man with a quick slice across his jugular, but Sandor was weakened from his imprisonment and found it incredibly challenging even holding the spar with the man.

Blount delivered a wicked right hook and Sandor took it, preserving his saliva and the blood inside his mouth to spit directly into the exposed eye slots of the knight's helm. A single blink from his opponent was all Sandor needed to throw himself against Blount and topple both of them. Blount cushioned his fall and Sandor knocked the helm off with a bare-fisted punch that left his knuckles stinging. He took a hearty fistful of the hair atop Blount's head and smashed the back of the man's skull repeatedly into the cobblestone ground until he saw a mushy blood splatter that meant he had reached brain and Blount was dead.

That single fight had taken what little energy Sandor had and as he watched Mormont cut through Greenfield's armpit, driving his sword sideways to take out the heart from that angle, he knew that the two strongest opponents remained to battle and neither he nor Mormont would be able to hold their own. The girl had cut Swann without him realizing it and it took the knight a solid half minute to continue battling her before he realized there was a hole in his throat. Moving around the knight as soon as he came to a standstill and placed a hand to his bleeding neck, the girl came to Sandor's side, prompting Gregor and Greyjoy forward with the point of her needle-sword.

"If we get through to her, leave Cersei to me," said the girl.

"You go on," said Sandor. If he kept Gregor occupied and Mormont took on Greyjoy, it would leave an opening for the girl to reach Cersei. The Hand was a defenseless pawn between them and was already a dead man if the girl could get around Cersei's last two defenders. Sandor knew he would not be able to hold his brother back for long and didn't trust Mormont to possess the strength needed to win his own fight, but it could be—it had to be—enough time for the girl to do what she came to do.

"After," said the girl. "You'll need my help."

"No, _now_. You stay the fuck away from him," said Sandor, gesturing at his brother. The last thing he needed to see before he died was Gregor taking the girl's head in between his hands and squashing it like an overly ripe melon.

Euron Greyjoy drew his sword invitingly and performed an intricate string of attacks against an invisible opponent to showcase his skill. "When I'm finished here, Clegane, I'll find your she-wolf and fuck her like I fucked the dragon woman's corpse," he promised. He singled out Mormont as his opponent and continued to egg him on. "And she was still warm when I fucked her, Ser Jorah."

"You didn't," said Mormont. "And you didn't shoot her out of the sky, either."

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but you'll never know for true, will you? What if I told you that she died begging us to release you? What if the truth of it was that she told her dragon to fly and stayed behind because it was overwhelmed? What would you say if I told you that I snapped her neck and had her thrown in the sea to soak up the stench of the city she wanted so badly? Would you believe any of that?"

Greyjoy was attempting to do the very thing Sandor had put himself in harm's way to prevent. He had grabbed Mormont when the knight tried to fly at Greyjoy for taunting him about the Dragon Queen's death. It was a move of stupidity, attacking with no weapon and all rage, but now that he had a weapon, he was liable to make a costly mistake in his haste to shut Greyjoy up.

"Mormont," said Sandor in a measured tone. "Don't do something stupid."

He did. He lunged into the attack that Greyjoy was expecting and nearly got his eye taken out by Greyjoy's hidden dagger. He leaned back, fending Greyjoy off as the man came at him in a series of vicious overhead hacks.

Gregor had been watching Greyjoy but now that the kraken was engaged in battle, Sandor's brother turned his bloodshot eyes to the girl. She was more of the threat now. _She _was a greater opponent to Gregor than Sandor because Sandor had been beaten in Gregor's eyes, not worth his time.

Sandor moved in front of the girl, sword up and ready while the rest of him certainly was not.

"Do what you came for, girl, go now!" Sandor commanded and she ran, stepping nimbly out of Gregor's reach as she wove around him to reach Cersei. With how far gone his mind was other than to focus on vengeance and dog-like loyalty, Gregor was slow to realize what was happening but when he did, he rounded on the girl and started trudging over the fallen Queensguard and soldiers to reach her before she could reach Cersei.

Sandor saw an opening and charged, driving the full force of his body into his sword hilt and the entire thing went through Gregor's hip but Sandor should have known that simply running his brother through with steel would not be enough to kill him, not when Qyburn had explained how immune Gregor was to pain, how different he now was from the—for lack of a better word—_human_ he had been. Gregor made a half-stumble forward and then looked down to see the tip of Sandor's sword protruding from his other side as if it were an inconvenience. He wheeled around and delivered a punishing back-hand to Sandor which cut his lip open and winded him all in one blow, knocking him to his knees.

Gregor took the sword hilt and yanked hard, pulling the entire thing out of him in one go, tossing it before Sandor, and then kicking Sandor hard in the chest to put him down and keep him down, for the kick drove the air from Sandor's sternum, bruising everything underneath and leaving him crying for breath. Gregor turned his attention back to the girl who was dodging bricks that the Hand and Cersei threw at her. Sandor swallowed a laugh at the pathetic sight of the mighty Cersei Lannister and her demented Hand, tossing bricks at a Faceless Assassin in the hopes of deterring her from reaching them.

Euron Greyjoy was still toying with Mormont, listing several ways in which the Targaryen woman might have died but not admitting the truth to any of them. Mormont was growing steadily redder in the face as he tried to catch Greyjoy off guard. He feinted left, but Greyjoy anticipated his maneuvers and easily outstepped him.

"You have to think of what you are, Mormont. A bear. A wild, unimaginative, unproven bear. What chance did the bear have of fucking a dragon? Now, a kraken, a regal creature capable of the same wonders as the magical dragons, _that_ is a fuck I'd like to see, and one that I got to see. Even dead, she was good."

Greyjoy allowed Mormont to get in close and then sliced him across the face, opening a gash that nearly went down to the bone. Mormont dropped his sword to clutch at his wound, falling to one knee to staunch the flow. Greyjoy kicked him over and circled him like a vulture waiting for the last breath of its prey. In retaliation, Mormont scooped up a fistful of sand and sent it flying straight into Greyjoy's eyes, then took a broken stone and clubbed Greyjoy in the face with it. Three teeth spewed from Greyjoy's mouth and the kraken's wide, wild eyes settled on Mormont in a slavish manner that suggested Mormont's time for fighting back was quickly approaching its end.

The stores of wildfire beneath the nearest building joined with the trickles closing in from the surrounding structures and blasted both Mormont and Greyjoy into the air in separate directions. Mormont landed some ten feet away from where he had started, spitting out dust and holding his head from the impact. Amidst the raining debris, Greyjoy was the first to his feet, advancing on Mormont with no more traces of play on his face. He wanted this farce over with now. His sword came up—and then his leg was torn out from under him as the albino direwolf ripped through his shin. Greyjoy let out an inhuman roar, tossing aside his sword to wield his dagger in its stead. He let the wolf pull him in closer and then stabbed it just behind the head and it yelped, releasing him to try and paw at the wound.

Mormont flew at Greyjoy in a rage and Sandor felt himself rising, ignoring the threat of his brother just feet away to go to the wolf because, dammit, that was _his_ wolf. His and Mormont's, theirs and the little bird's. He'd chosen them all as his pack and if they could not defend him when he had come to their aid more often than not, they did not deserve the title.

Gregor had changed directions and started for the wolf as well, for the girl, the Hand, and Cersei had all stopped to watch the battle ensuing around them, putting Greyjoy's need before Cersei's.

The wolf had its attention on Mormont and Greyjoy who were now engaged in a brawl of fists, their weapons scattered about them, only with the former attacking the latter in a frenzied state, wanting to protect the wolf that had saved him. Gregor was nearly to the wolf now, sword drawing out of its scabbard to cut the animal in half just as he had done to his horse at the Hand's Tourney and if he could lob off a horse's head at the neck in one swipe, he could slice through a wolf with less effort.

"Ghost, to me!" Sandor hollered, and the wolf's lone ear perked up in his direction, eager to comply with the call of one of the people it recognized as its master. It saw Gregor advancing and ran around the giant, narrowly missing the swing that might have cloven it in two. When it saw Sandor panting for breath and bent over his knees, it licked at his hand as if that alone would help.

Sandor examined the wound behind its head, but found it to be a shallow injury, painful on impact, but not extensive. It would take more than the knife of a kraken to silence a wolf.

Gregor once again had turned around to come back for Sandor and the wolf but the wolf planted itself in front of Sandor, snapping almost rabidly at Gregor to ward him off. Through the gap in Gregor's legs, Sandor could see Greyjoy headbutt Mormont, see the knight collapse dazed and disoriented. Sandor could not even begin to give the wolf the order to run to Mormont's aid when Greyjoy turned Mormont around to face him—and got his own knife shoved up into the roof of his mouth.

"Ser Gregor!" cried Cersei, and Gregor, now looking almost irritated with this constant turning about, rotated on the spot to see the queen at the girl's mercy.

The girl had not made sport of the unarmed Hand but silenced him with one quick slash across his throat even as the man attempted to fend her off with a knife. It was almost amusing, how easily this master of torture was disposed of, but Sandor did not glean any satisfaction from the man's demise. If he had had his way, had the time and the strength required for the task, he would have made Qyburn's exit from this world a hundredfold times more painful than he had made Sandor's last days.

Seeing that the queen was now defenseless Gregor closed in on the girl and even with Mormont rushing to aid her, with Sandor pointing to the girl for the wolf to follow, neither would not get there in time.

The girl saw the last of the Queensguard coming for her and ran to Cersei, determined to end it all if it was to be her last act. Cersei had taken up a soldier's sword but Sandor knew she had never wielded one in her life, not even when her brother offered to teach her in the godswood, not when Sandor had suggested she do something to protect her children in the future besides stuffing them under her skirts. She had no skill, no knowledge, and no chance.

But the girl came up short of the queen, stopping when she saw the armored knight reaching out to embrace Cersei from behind. Sandor heard the Kingslayer call his sister's name and Cersei turned to him, letting out a dry sob as she accepted the embrace of her rescuer and when they joined, Sandor saw the glint of steel as it slid between her ribs. Jaime Lannister cradled his sister to him even as she regarded him in confusion, not understanding this betrayal, wobbling on unsteady legs and clutching at her brother as her body gave out on her.

It was so quick, so unexpected, and Sandor hated Jaime Lannister for ending it so easily, painlessly for her. That woman deserved endless pain, excruciating, enduring, horrible pain, and Jaime Lannister had not given it to her. She had set the city ablaze, intending to murder thousands, and he had given her the mercy of a quick death. Fuck them both.

The Lannisters were forgotten as Sandor watched Gregor rise up behind the girl and smack her down face-first onto the bodies littering the ground below her. She didn't stay down long, rolling far out of Gregor's reach and tossing her little Needle from hand to hand to match Gregor's stance. He lunged left and she found a weak spot in his armor to stab him quick before drawing back out and dancing away from his grasp.

She drove her sword direct and hard into his underarm and he should have gone down then as well as the twenty times she stabbed him before, but she might as well have given him a pin prick for all the good it did. She waited one second too long. With her sword still embedded in his arm, Gregor snatched out at her and lifted her by the front of her leather armor and Sandor watched the panic set in, the panic that he had seen once before in Winterfell's corridor as the wights came for her. The girl didn't fear much in this world, but she did fear being helpless and she had never been more so than in this moment at the hands of the Mountain. She kicked her small legs uselessly against Gregor's breastplate, beat at his forearm with her fists and even slipped her dagger from its scabbard into Gregor's neck to no avail.

Gregor threw her down hard enough to break her kneecaps, but by some miracle of the Seven, they remained intact. She tried to crawl away but Gregor seized one of her legs, dragging her back to him. Her fingernails scrabbled at the cobblestone without finding purchase and her desperate breaths spoke only of a child about to be slaughtered. All of her training as an assassin, her whispered footsteps and delicate dancing and crafty swordwork were for naught in the hands of a giant that could not die by any means less than beheading or complete annihilation. She was a little girl against a man's strength, nothing more.

"_Sandor_!" she screamed.

She had never screamed for him before, never said his name whether it be his house name or his first. She would not accept his help or admit that she was in danger, but she called to him now, terrified for her life and of the Mountain that was about to crush her. And it made Sandor angry as he had been twice before: when Brienne of Tarth had attempted to take the girl and when Dondarrion had pointed her out on the thatched roof during the battle. She had been in danger and it made his chest swell with hate for those who would dare harm her but he was loathe to admit to himself why such a sight enraged him.

A Hound for true, his only redeeming quality was his fierce protectiveness over those who had been wronged, bullied, and beaten by the world. He didn't have the opportunity to save many of them, often watching them meet their demise, but in the Stark sisters he had pounced on the chance to better himself and when his little bird had first denied his help, he had had no purpose. When he found the girl, he had surmised that a noble deed would be rewarded even if his intent was only to collect the ransom, only he hadn't collected. He had let the girl continue to accompany him and on their last night before she left him for dead, he had pretended to be asleep as she recited her damn list.

His name was not spoken.

And the next day, he prepared to die for her because he had removed her from his own list of things he hated in this world. And he was prepared to die for her during the Battle of Winterfell because she was still only a girl fighting a war against an unbeatable enemy. She was a wolf by nature, but she was a pup—_his _pup. No one had protected her as he had, bled for her as he had, not even her own father, and as pig-headed as she was, she was still a child without a parent, orphaned too young, forced into adulthood too quickly. Just a bloody child.

She was his and this would be the last time anyone dared to try and take her from him.

There was nothing else for it; Sandor launched himself onto his brother, pulling him away from the girl. His weight made Gregor stumble and the girl fell from his grip, scrambling for cover. Gregor elbowed Sandor in his already battered chest and smashed his head against Sandor's to disorient him. Then he tossed off his gloves, the better to find a hold on Sandor's throat and for the third time, he began to squeeze, crushing Sandor's windpipe.

His head pounded before Gregor had taken hold of him, but now with his throat caving in, Sandor felt pressure in his ears popping, felt blood vessels rupturing behind his eyes. If he didn't pass into unconsciousness first, he would die as his head caved in on itself.

Air wouldn't come in even as blood went out. Lying here with his brother throttling him, he was going to die and he had never been angrier in his life. There was nothing to hold Gregor back this time. The maester who had brought him back to life was dead, the queen whose orders he followed blindly was dead. Gregor was free at last to end Sandor as he had intended so many years ago, and he would do it, one way or another.

Sandor was determined to look his brother in the eyes this time. He would die, but his gaze would ensure that Gregor met him in the first of the seven hells and then, then there would be equality as they dueled over who would enter eternal damnation.

The wolf was ripping into Gregor's pant leg, oblivious to the fact that Gregor could not feel the jaws tearing his calf to shreds. Then Mormont's arms closed around Gregor's neck in an attempt to choke him even though the knight knew he couldn't be killed like any other man—because he wasn't a man. He was a wight with a brain and vengeance and power. Still, the act was enough to distract him and he released Sandor's throat, standing upright and trying to swat at Mormont.

Sandor rolled onto his side, gagging and vomiting on breath as it filled his bruised lungs. He could not lay here and let the pain subside, however. He had to get up, get moving, and help Mormont. He searched for his sword, not that it would do any good and when he found it, he grasped it, and heard a grunt of pain as Gregor threw Mormont off of him, slamming him into the wall that remained standing of the building that had blown out three of its walls during the earlier explosion. His enormous hands found Mormont's throat and began to squash it. Legs kicking, Mormont stuck one hand into Gregor's eye and clawed at the eyeball. Blood spurted from where he had torn it out but it didn't faze Gregor in the slightest. He only pressed harder against Mormont's gullet and the latter was turning red, then purple, then blue.

_Fuck it._

Sandor sheathed his sword and wrapped his arms around Gregor's midsection, reaching for his strength reserves to lift his brother away from Mormont. Bigger, heavier, and with the weight of a dead man tenfold, lifting Gregor might as well have been lifting the very thing for which he was named, but Sandor did, roaring with exertion, watching in awe as his brother's feet left the ground. Heaving, Sandor launched Gregor into the pile of rubble from the other three walls of the building.

Faster than he had moved at any point during the last twenty minutes, Gregor stood up, broadsword in his grasp. Sandor took his own back out now that he had his brother's full focus.

_Oh, fuck me…_

He wasn't ready, but Gregor came at him anyway. Sandor blocked, he parried, he incorporated every style and stance he knew just to stay ahead of the swings, but the one move that cost him was the one offensive strike he managed. He brought his sword down, cleaving Gregor's left hand off and in the wake of his victory, he did not see Gregor cutting through the air. Steel tore across Sandor's chest, opening him from shoulder to hip. His gargled cry died in his bruised throat as he dropped, expecting his world to fade into black or white or whichever of the fucking two happened when a man died, only it didn't because he hadn't.

He lifted his chin to see how deeply he had been cut, but despite the pain, he was dumfounded to find that it was as shallow as the wound on the wolf's back. A flesh wound, agonizing, but not deadly—yet.

His moment of marveling at his own luck cost him again, and dearly. Mormont blocked the blow meant to split Sandor's skull in two. He drove Gregor backward, dodging underneath the wide, sweeping arcs Gregor was making to behead him. The numerous stab wounds he had taken from Sandor, Mormont, and the girl had not slowed Gregor down at all and on one swing, he caught Mormont in the arm, slicing open a large chunk of his skin. As Mormont recoiled, Gregor shoved Mormont straight down onto the bloody gravel. Mormont hastened to avoid Gregor's foot as it came smashing down where Mormont's head had been moments ago.

Sandor tried to holler out a warning, but his throat wasn't yet working. He took up his sword, using it as a crutch to help him stand.

Gregor had backed Mormont into the rubble where the treacherous footing threatened to undo them both. Mormont was smaller, speedier, and stupid for thinking this was his fight to win. He knew single combat would not grant him victory, knew the consequences of the ulterior outcome, but he threw himself into the fray all the same. Thrice now he had been the sole individual to come between Sandor and his brother's grasp, but luck rarely favored any one man more than once—and Mormont was running on borrowed time. Mormont blocked again and once more and then Gregor's blade found Mormont's stomach, sticking him completely through. The blade exited in the small of Mormont's back.

Sandor heard the exhale from where he was still attempting to stand several feet away. A gentle sound, resonating with saddened acceptance. Never had such a warrior looked so small, impaled on the Mountain's sword like a rag doll. Mormont set his hand on Gregor's blade hilt, pushing against it as if trying to force Gregor to withdraw it.

Blinded by the blood caked to his brow, Sandor launched himself at Gregor, claimed by a rage he had never known before. His brother had stolen half of his face as a child and thus, stolen any chance at a normal adulthood and now he had stolen the one friend Sandor had ever earned. This was it; Sandor had had enough, had lost enough. He knew that he would not come back from this loss if it was allowed to fester, so the only option that remained was to rectify it.

His sword would do no good in close quarters, so he let it fall from his grip as the two of them landed amidst the debris of the building with the three collapsed walls. His fist pummeled Gregor's face to no effect. He stabbed out with his dagger, puncturing every bit of skin he could find and achieving no victory from any of his hits.

_That is not a war you can win, Clegane, not on your own._

He had Gregor pinned now, fracturing his knuckles with every punch as he continued to beat at Gregor's face. His brother's hand was snaking up to dig into the wound in Sandor's chest, tearing at the flesh with grimy fingernails. Sandor took a sizable piece of rubble and would have brought it smashing down on Gregor's head had the latter not delivered an unforgiving hit directly to Sandor's nose, breaking the bone on impact. He was lucky the bone had not been shoved up into his skull, but as blood spilled from both nostrils, he knew he had to stand or risk never rising if Gregor made it to his feet first.

_ If you walk out those gates, you walk to your death._

No one believed that he could triumph over his brother. No one had faith in him to complete the task because Gregor could not be killed by man. No man…

No man.

Sandor stepped back one pace, then another, making a total of five to remove himself from the wall's shadow. Every part of him ached while others throbbed and even more seared with pain from every hit he had taken. He was utterly spent.

No _man…_

He watched the wall crumble at the base, listening to the stones crack and the timbers groan as the entire thing gave way, casting itself over Gregor who was still making his way slowly, too slowly, to his feet. The shadow grew larger, encasing Gregor and coming up just shy of Sandor. Gregor glanced up at the massive structure rapidly descending on him.

Burning, falling, immense and heavy, the wall toppled, crushing Sandor's brother beneath it. A cloud of clay dusting blew upward with the impact of the collapse and Sandor choked on it, wiping at his eyes to see for certain what he feared might not be the end of his brother. He watched the rubble for signs of life, for a clammy hand to break out from underneath, showing that Gregor Clegane was more difficult an opponent to kill than the fucking Night King. But only dust rose from the debris.

There was no time to come to terms with his brother's demise. He could spare no feeling at having finally seen his life's mission to its end. There was no closure to be had. Perhaps later, if Sandor lived that long, he could process the wall and the body smashed beneath it, but for now—now only the man with Gregor's sword in him mattered.

Sandor ran a hand over his eyes to clear it of all the muck of battle and stumbled back to where Mormont was on his knees, hands trying to pull Gregor's sword out but with every quarter inch he gained, more blood dribbled from between his teeth. A fine layer of ash and grime coated him, giving him one complete layer of musky brown but the blood stood out in stark contrast on his lips. He saw Sandor coming back to him and his hands fell from the sword in defeat.

"You stupid son of a whore," said Sandor, pulling Mormont's head to his shoulder to hold him in place as his other hand drew the sword out with one sharp tug. Mormont spat blood over Sandor's shoulder, eyes bulging as the metal left his body.

"H-he stabbed me," said Mormont, watching the blood spill out of his gut.

"Smartest fucker alive, you are," said Sandor, slapping his hand over the entrance wound. He had no way to bind the wound to at least keep the blood loss at bay.

"Here," said the girl, offering him a wad of cloth that looked as if it had come from the Lannister queen's dress. Sandor snatched up the bindings but before he could tend to Mormont, he saw that blood was trickling down from her scalp. He took hold of her ear and pulled her head closer so that he could examine the head injury. There was a deep wound in her head and after he ran a thumb over it, he thought that whatever had been knocked against her skull might have dented it. If that was the case, if she had internal bleeding…

"Can you see me clearly, girl?" Sandor asked her.

"Yes, but don't waste your time on me. He needs a maester's tending or he's not going to last."

"My hands…" said Mormont distantly as Sandor stuffed the scrap of cloth into Mormont's tunic to press against the wound. While Sandor tied the cloth in place, the girl took more cloth and bound it as best she could across his own wound to collect the blood.

"That's the best I can do," she said, rubbing at her temple.

"I can't feel my hands," said Mormont. "And I can't walk…"

"That was a given," said Sandor. "Try not to bleed all over me."

Sandor stood Mormont up and let the knight fall against his shoulder, wrapping his arms around Mormont's legs as he stood upright. The unanticipated weight almost sent both of them right back down but the girl was at Sandor's back to push against him and throw the distribution forward. Sandor took one step to test himself and then another and when he remained standing, he kept walking, calling to the girl to stay with him.

At the last moment, he remembered Jaime Lannister and turned to see the man weeping silent tears, kneeling beside his sister's body with one of her hands clutched in his. He laid a tender kiss upon it, watching the wildfire creeping toward him from where it had spilled out onto the street.

"He's not coming," said the girl, and they left him.

The wolf led them out of the most dangerous part of the city and Sandor trusted its ability to sense safety better than he trusted his own eyes but when they had left the sight of their battle behind, Sandor lost sight of the wolf and though he called for it, the beast did not return, leaving him to navigate his way on his own.

By some miracle, Sandor was able to walk and keep walking to pass one street, then another, and another. He knew the way, knew that if he didn't get them to the bay, all three of them would burn in this damnable city but he wanted to run for the nearest building not on fire and burrow down into the cellar, not brave the streets. It was stifling, burning, and Sandor could hardly breathe from both the closeness of the air and the memory of how he had been so badly hurt by flames. Too reliant he had been on Mormont's willingness to lead the way and now that he didn't have the man's guidance, he was useless to himself.

It could have been anything else and Sandor would have seen them all through without hesitation, but fire, fire was the one thing he could not face.

"You have to stop," said the girl when they had walked a fair distance but seemed no closer to their destination. "He's bleeding too much."

Sandor dropped to one knee, pulling on the back of Mormont's tunic to get him off of his shoulder. He lowered the bleeding man to the ground and saw for himself the severity of the wound beneath the tunic. What had used to be a bottle green material was completely red and more of it spilled from Mormont's mouth. Battle, blood, and buggery were all Sandor knew and he was wise in the ways of how much blood a man could stand to lose before there was no turning back. Mormont had passed that point long ago.

"Don't carry me anymore," he rasped in his broken voice. "It hurts."

"I don't give a bloody fuck if it hurts. It means you're still alive," said Sandor.

"You _can't_ carry me."

"Watch me."

Sandor made to lift Mormont again but the man cried out in a sound so wounded, so reminiscent of the awful noises he had made after the death of his beloved queen that Sandor immediately dropped him back in the mud just to spare himself of having to hear those sounds again.

"Don't do that," he griped. "Keep your fucking mouth shut and cope with this."

Mormont stuck out his hand as if that would stop Sandor and then appealed to the girl.

"He won't listen…you have to. Get him out."

"Don't worry, I will," said the girl, blinking through the blood dripping down from her forehead.

"Swear it," Mormont insisted.

"I will, I promise."

Scoffing at the idea that the bleeding, disoriented girl would be the one to lead him to safety, Sandor gave Mormont a shake. "She's in charge of shit. I'm the one making decisions here and I'll decide when you get to die. It's not right now, so shut the fuck up. Girl, stay with me, don't need to lose you down some damned alley." He draped Mormont back into place, disregarding the awful moans the man was making as he searched in the semi-darkness for the Stark girl.

"I'll be right behind you," she said, her eyes crossing and resulting in her nearly slamming her head into the hitching post of a baker's shop.

Sandor put out his hand to stop her and then with some careful maneuvering, slung her over his other shoulder to try and balance the weight.

"Put me down, I can walk—"

"Shut up, girl."

"I can. I have to. You can't carry us both."

"If you don't shut your fucking mouth, I'll bash your head against something that will knock you out cold until spring."

He attempted to stand, but with the addition of the girl to his already heavy burden, he couldn't do it. He didn't have the strength to carry both of them and the bay was still so far…

"Fuck me," he muttered, and pulled the girl off of him to set her beneath the arch of the walkway above. If the buildings around her collapsed, the arch would curve over her as it plummeted and not crush her—or so went his way of thinking when it was so difficult to do even that at the moment. Even if the arch _did _curve around her, he would have to dig her out and that would require more of what he did not have left to give—everything.

Propping the girl's head up, he delivered a stinging slap to her cheek and her eyelids flittered open to take in the sight of him hunching over her with Mormont still draped across one shoulder.

"You listen, girl. Tell me you hear me."

"I hear…I can…"

"I can't carry you both. I'm taking him first, as far as I can get to where it's not fucking burning and then I'm coming back. You stay alert and don't move."

"Sandor…"

Her voice had not dropped much as she came into womanhood, but it was still more aged than when he had first met her. As she spoke his name, she sounded like that frightened, stubborn, arrogant little girl he had snatched up in the dead of night. Helpless, alone, and so young.

"I'm coming back," he promised.

Securing his forearms around the back of Mormont's legs, Sandor stood up, fearing for a moment that he was about to teeter sideways and land on Mormont's head, but he kept his stance and took in his surroundings, making a mental note of the cross-streets to remember where he was leaving the girl. He saw the untouched division of the city spread out before him, the outskirts of Flea Bottom and the one area it seemed the wildfire had not yet spread to and beyond, the glittering green waters of Blackwater Bay. Somewhere down there, he had to deposit Mormont and then make the long, treacherous journey back for the girl, all while wounded and so very frail. Then, he had to carry them each individually the rest of the way to the bay.

He would never make it.

Something wet and warm ran over his fractured knuckles and if he had had the energy to, he would have jumped, but as it stood, he could only turn to see two red eyes watching him. The wolf was still bleeding where Greyjoy had stabbed it, but it goaded Sandor into walking with its nose and then set off at a limping trot, looking back over its shoulder to see if Sandor was following.

"Aye, I'm coming," he called out to the wolf, and fell into step behind it with one last uneasy glance to where he had left the girl. _And I'm coming back._


	24. Chapter 24: Fire and Blood

**SANDOR**

He should have dropped Mormont ten minutes ago, half an hour ago, as soon as he'd picked him up. He could barely hold the knight, needing the support of a solid wall more and more often and losing his bearings until he relied solely upon the form of the wolf in front of him. The wolf slowed to his pace, almost walking backwards to keep him in its sight as Sandor began to lag behind. Then, during one moment in which Sandor had looked away from the wolf, it was gone. An instant feeling of the world closing in on him made Sandor call out to it, for he knew he would never be able to carry Mormont out without guidance to the bay.

The wolf _had _led him to the bay or at least, within sight of it but still four or five streets away. They were far enough ahead of the fire that Sandor could now find some place to leave Mormont and go back for the girl, assuming he could find his way back to where he had hidden her and then return to Mormont. It was all starting to look very bleak and unachievable.

But one impossible hurdle at a time. For now he would stash Mormont somewhere and start back for the girl…

As with all of the structures this far away from an exit gate, the nearest house looked abandoned, but Sandor did not suspend his belief that some cowering Gold Cloak might still be hiding out in the hopes that fire would spare this individual building. He was careful to set Mormont down, cradling the man's head as he let him slide off of his shoulder. The knight's deterioration in the short time since Sandor had last looked him in the face was alarming. Blood had splattered across the entire lower half of Mormont's face and painted him from the neck down. His chin slumped against his chest when Sandor propped him against a water barrel and his lack of reaction doused Sandor in an icy shower of dread.

He tapped Mormont's cheek with the back of his hand with no response. If he was in such irreversible pain, a slap to the face would not register with him; Sandor had to be rougher. He pressed down on the bulge at Mormont's belly where the saturated bandages sat to collect blood and Mormont's eyes popped open as he surged forward with a pained gasp.

"We're almost there," Sandor lied. "But I have to leave you somewhere to go back for the girl. You stay alert while I check inside here."

Mormont tried to speak but all that came out was a wet splutter with a bursting blood bubble at the corner of his mouth.

Sandor drew his sword, kicked the door open, and stepped inside. He saw no one in the immediate room within—but he made the fatal mistake of not checking behind the door. A plank smacked him across his already broken nose and then caught him in the groin. Howling out his pain, he threw himself at his attacker with his sword pulling back to skewer her through the belly as he pinned her to the wall.

_Her?_

His little bird's terrified, ash-coated face blinked up at him wielding his sword in first terror, then relief, and then she hit him. Twice front-handed, once back-handed, beating at his chest. "You idiot, you stupid, stupid man, I told you what would happen if you came back here, gods damn you!" Then she reached up as far as she could and he let go of his sword to catch her as she clung to him, sobbing herself into a ruddy mess while her arms trapped him in a death-gripped embrace.

Sandor's body seized as if a demon had petrified him and made him unable to move. Her touch, the very thing he had wanted, thought about, obsessed over, and used as his form of escape when the pain became too much—he had it now. She was clutching him as if she feared someone would try to wrench her away, and he loved it. This was how she should have been when he initially left her.

What a bloody fool she'd made of herself in denying him her innermost feelings when he could see them so plainly now.

He could have lost himself in her touch until the fire spread to this part of the city and engulfed them, but he recalled his purpose in the man he had left outside and the girl he had left several streets behind. He had to postpone his body's wants at the moment.

"You're a damned stupid girl," he said at last, prying her loose and looking about for a sign that would enlighten him as to how she had gotten this far into the city with no escort. Damn that sellsword. If Sandor found the cunt before this was over, he'd skin him alive for leaving her. And why did she have to be here, now? The wolf, the sellsword, her own fucking brother were supposed to keep her from doing rash things like this, so how in the ever-living fuck did she end up in here, the very last place he needed her to be right now? "What in seven fucking hells are you doing here?"

"As soon as the first jars of wildfire went up, everyone began spewing out of the city in a mad stampede. I was overlooking the battle but I saw riders of the Golden Company cutting down everything in their path, children, old women…and…Sandor, you're hurt."

She reached up to examine his face, blackened, bloodied, and broken. She pointed to his chest where his tunic was barely holding itself together from the blow Gregor had dealt him, but he was far too alive at the moment, far too terrified of the city wreathed in flame to worry about such mortal things.

He went back outside to where he had left Mormont and carried the knight in, setting him in the corner of the room where he would be well shielded from any flying debris. Sandor offered him a filled flagon of water from the barrel that Mormont could not swallow on his own and Sandor had to tip the nozzle over the knight's lips.

"Ser Jorah," gasped the little bird, taking the flagon and ripping a piece of the curtain away to begin to dab at the blood caked onto Mormont. "But how-? Sandor, what's happened? Where's Arya and Ser Jaime?"

"No time. I'm going back for your sister. She's hurt, I could only carry one at a time. So I'm going back and you're going to sit here, away from the window, and stay with Mormont, you hear me?"

"If Arya's out there—"

"You stay with him, girl. Don't you dare leave him."

"Sandor, wait—" She caught him by the wrist, pulling him up short with hardly any strength needed because he was so reluctant to leave her.

He had no time. She was here in the flesh and he could touch her, taste her if he wanted to, but he had no _time_. He tilted her face down and planted a swift kiss on the crest of her head as a promise that he would be back for her.

"Stay _here_."

_Please._

He thought he would have to dislocate his arm to wring himself free of her grasp, but she let him go, sinking down into the corner with Mormont to tend to his wounds as best she could.

Invigorated with newfound energy, he ran, disregarding every feeling below his neck. He plowed right back up the streets he had already been through, mind set on the archway where he had left the girl. He had tried to take the most direct path to not completely lose his bearings, but it was an uphill climb and his leg muscles were tightening in protest to their overuse after two months of sitting on his arse on damp stone.

His only interaction with another human being was when a man with half of his face melted off threw himself at Sandor, begging for help. Sandor gave him the quick mercy of driving his sword into the man's heart and then backed up several paces before continuing on. He saw bodies, some cooked through, some little more than fragmented ash, and would accept no such fate for himself. The fire had sampled him so often now, but it could not finish him. He was one victim it would not consume.

The fire was closing in as he clambered up the slope that led right up under the archway. He knocked aside a broken cart and found the girl exactly where he had left her, but now slumped over with her face stuck to the ground from the blood trickling out of her head wound. Sandor dropped to his knees before her and brought her level with him.

"Girl," he said urgently.

Nothing.

_Not today_, he growled inwardly. Her Many-Faced God couldn't have her today, or any day. He held his hand over her mouth and nose, waiting to feel the warmth of an exhale.

Nothing.

"Girl, look at me!" he hollered, shaking her lifeless form. "Gods damn you if you die on me, you wretch of a child, now fucking come on!"

She did not wake for him and he heard himself scream at her, curse her. He brought her chest to his ear, listening. It was impossible to hear anything in the din of the crumbling city, so he had no way of knowing…

Her chest pulsed against his skin, feebly, but he did not mistake the movement he felt there.

Lifting the back of her head to support her, he hollered at her again. Her eyeballs moved about underneath heavy lids, but did not open. It was enough for him; she was still alive. Wrapping her within his arms, pressing her to his chest, he started off again. He had made this trek twice already and though it was but a small portion of the city that he had to plot a course through, his battered body was running off of pure terror now, fear of what would happen if he did not keep ahead of the fire and did not find a maester for Mormont and the girl within three seconds of leaving the city walls.

The archway collapsed behind him and he put on a burst of speed to outdistance the explosions. He tried to keep the girl's head from bouncing about, for all of this jarring movement would not do her any good, but it could not be helped.

Muscle memory guided him back to the house. He marveled at how he could have gotten himself here without the wolf's help, without even being fully aware of walking this far. Perhaps he was receiving aid from the gods he didn't believe in, even now.

He set the girl down and announced his entrance before he invited himself back into the house, expecting to see an unconscious Mormont and a worried little bird.

She was gone, but a blood stain dragged out across the floor from the threshold and he followed it to the adjoining room where he found two men in golden armor laying facedown with fatal wounds in both their groins and necks. Sigils emblazoned in their breastplates showed seven skulls dangling from a red spear on a brown field. The Golden Company. They had found her, found her and Mormont and—and what? If they were dead, Mormont was still alive, and she was missing, what had happened here? Had there been more? Had they taken her and left Mormont, figuring him for dead anyway? Who had killed them? Surely not her; she was too inexperienced and they were notoriously gifted with their blades.

Sandor was frozen to the spot with the thought of what might have happened, what _had _happened in the time it took him to go back for the Stark sister. He slapped Mormont into alertness, demanding to know what had become of the little bird. It was here that he saw red on Mormont's hands and forearms and a Valyrian steel dagger in his lap.

"Did she give you this?" asked Sandor when he had finally roused the knight. "What happened, Mormont, tell me!"

Wincing at the harsh delivery of Sandor's words, Mormont pried his mouth open and said faintly, "Four came…I got two. She…she ran."

"She ran?" Sandor repeated. It was the smart thing to do, run to draw the remaining two sellswords away from Mormont, but then, who had piled the bodies in the next room? Unless they had both crawled and died on top of each other. Nothing was adding up and Mormont was not a reliable source of information, even with the small bits of Sandor's insistent interrogation that he could respond to.

The city burned, the people burned, and Sandor screamed for her. He had never been so out of composure as in this moment, struggling to draw breath in utter panic. She had just been here not even half an hour ago. She had been _here_.

Out into the middle of the street, he looked in all directions for a sign of her, a glimpse of her hair, anything that might tell him where she had gone, where she had been hauled away to, for if she had not left willingly to do gods-knew-what, she had been forced. But he had been gone too long, long enough that someone had taken her and he was not there for her when she needed him most. Death by rape, death by fire, _death_.

"_SANSA_!" he bellowed. If she was alive, if she could hear him calling her name for the first time, she would answer.

She was there, astride a black destrier and throwing a worrying glance over her shoulder. As the animal came to a halt before him, he pulled her from its back and shook her, screaming at her for her stupidity, berating her for doing the one thing he had told her not to. Her innocent icy blue eyes blinked at him and then he crushed her to him, heart still pounding in fear that he had lost both of the Stark girls this day. Clawing at her face to pull it closer to his, he so wanted to kiss her right now, hold her, smell her, and know that he had made it back to her as Mormont promised.

"What happened? Where the fuck did you go?" he demanded, spit flying from his parched lips.

"For help," she said, trembling from both his fury at her and his joy to see her alive.

"Damn you, girl, I told you to _stay_."

"They found us," she began, and he noted that she had blood smeared across her throat, but there was no source. It was not hers. "Ser Jorah, he told me to hide and pretended to lie dead upon the floor, then I knocked them over and he killed them, but more came and I knew he wouldn't be able to fight them as well, so I led them away, just a few houses down that way. They caught up to me and—"

Sandor stopped her, afraid of what she might say next. She was here, alive, but if they had done to her what they had meant to do—

"Did they put their hands on you?"

This was a conversation meant for another time, not at the moment with fire and rampaging animals and death all around, but he had to know if he had failed her again.

"They never got the chance," she said proudly, showing him blood on the end of another dagger she wore at her side.

She must have continued her training with the sellsword in his absence and even if she was the shittiest swordswoman in all of the Seven Kingdoms, she was still a Stark, and that fierceness of her house would have aided her in the fight against two men of the Golden Company. He swelled with his own pride for her, his little bird coming into her own on the battlefield and earning the right to carry a blade.

He had no compliments for her, though. Instead, he asked where she had gone after killing the men if she had only run the length of three houses east.

"We needed a horse," she said somewhat timidly, but earnestly.

"We needed a-? Fuck the horse, you left him in there alone when I told you to stay with him."

"When he saw that there were more, he told me to run."

Mormont had said that she ran of her own free will.

"I'll fucking kill him—"

Sandor went to barge into the house and deliver some insightfully cruel words to the knight when he was pulled up short by a forewarning in the form of a sound akin to a steaming kettle that had been left in the fire too long.

He heard it, a shrill, piercing sound of something under enormous pressure building, coming to a peak, and boiling over. He knew what would happen only a second before it did and could do nothing to prevent it. The building across from them burst and green fire shot out thick and heavy, lashing and latching onto anything it came into contact with. And she had been directly in its path…

She was alight, writhing on the ground where she had been blasted like a projectile and shrieking as the fire lapped at her. Sandor threw himself down on top of her, churning up dust to douse the flame even as it licked at him and seared across his skin where it came into contact with hers. He flattened her beneath him, swatting at the green with his bare hands as he hugged her to him, his scream rising in pitch to meet hers.

Rolling, carrying her with him, he refused to stop moving until the dust had snuffed out the last of the wildfire, but the damage had been done. She choked on her own sobbing breaths, holding onto him, wrapping him in a lover's embrace, and begging him to help her.

"It hurts," she wept. "Sandor, please…"

"I know it hurts."

He knew, better than anyone.

_He was a boy, wailing and thrashing under the strong hands that pressed him down._

_"Mother!" he cried. "Mother, stop him!"_

_ "She's dead, you little fucker. You'll see her soon."_

_ He kicked at the much larger form holding his face against the coals and his screams rose to a tortured animal's shrieks._

_ "Gregor, let him go!" the servants hollered. "Let go of the boy!"_

_It had taken four of them to pull Gregor away and another two to keep him off._

_In the weeks following, Sandor was unable to sleep, unable to stop crying despite the maester's pain supplements. He retched on the stench that followed him and seeped into his sheets. The maester filled his room with scented oils that made his head throb. He spread a cooling ointment over the charred skin, trying to help Sandor come to terms with his disfigured face._

_Nothing could console him; he had to endure with the pain day and night while his father scolded him for crying. He cried for his mother to return from the dead and take him with her, for anything would be better than this endless pain. His father had struck him when he said it out loud._

"_It will never stop burning, but you'll hold your silence and make do, or you'll die. No one is going to pity your pain, only your face. They'll point at you and whisper behind their hands, call you ugly and deformed, run from you in fright. You have a hard life ahead of you because of what happened, but you'll never tell a soul. Live with the pain, or die from it."_

He was a man, burnt again, sharing in the pain with the woman who had suffered it to come find him. She burned because of him, for him, and if he could give her nothing else, he could hold her as he had never been held, as he had needed to be when it most mattered. He cupped her body to him, whispering into her ear in the hopes that she could hear him.

"It'll never stop burning, but it won't kill you this night, I promise you." She tried to slap her hand to the burn, not knowing how to help herself, but he caught it, wrapped it within his, and sought to quiet her. "Shhh…I have you, little bird."

There were hot tears spilling out from under her tightly closed eyelids. He should have kissed her then, distracted her from the pain with his advances, but this was not the time. She needed relief, not distraction, and she needed safe passage out of the city, reassurances that she would not burn further. It was a short distance to the water barrel outside the house he had stashed Mormont in and he lifted the entire thing above his head, returning to where she lay in the gutters. He tipped the contents of the barrel onto her and she shrieked at the temperature, but he scooped her back up before she was even fully aware that he had just drenched her and cleared her hair from her face.

"Look at me."

His hand was large enough to envelop the entire unmarked side of her face, creating a padded cushion. Sopping wet, still smoking from her burns, tear-stricken, her face ruddy, she nuzzled herself into his hand, her gaze fraught, but hopeful that he would save her from the agony.

"Let me see the she-wolf," he told her. There was a visible rise in her throat as she took a measured swallow and then gave him an assertive nod. There she was, the wild little thing with fortitude, hell-bent on one goal. The first time he had seen it, it was geared toward Joffrey, driving her to make an attempt on the boy's life for vengeance, but now, the resolve was to show no fear, to find courage for him and for her sister.

He bore her to the horse and placed her atop its back, then snatched up the younger sister from where he had set her down and lay her between the horse's neck and the elder sister's lap. He took the little bird's left hand and wrapped her fingers into her sister's belt.

"Arya," she said in alarm, shaking her sister's unresponsive form.

"Get her out of the city, don't stop for anything," Sandor ordered. "She might not have that much time."

She was loathe to let go of him and even when he wriggled his fingers out from under her vice-like grip, she snatched out and held him by his collar.

"Stop that," he told her roughly.

"You're coming with me."

"That horse can't hold all four of us." They both had seen the severity of Mormont's wounds, but she told him through expression alone what he did not want to acknowledge and he didn't thank her for it. "I'll see him out." He secured the girl and once again directed her sister to the road ahead. "Don't let go of her. Now, ride."

"Sandor, don't you dare—"

Sandor slapped the destrier's hindquarters and it took off, carrying his little bird and his pup away. He saw the elder look over her shoulder, watching him until the smoke swallowed both her and her sister. Convincing himself that this would not be the last he looked upon her, Sandor forced himself to tear his eyes away from the road

Mormont was where Sandor had left him, safely inside.

_Safely_.

He heard himself laughing in madness and his insane cackle roused Mormont who cracked one eye open to see Sandor kneeling before him. His face and neck had been wiped clear of blood—a parting gift from the little bird who at least had stayed with him long enough to do him the one favor.

"You're burning," Mormont mumbled.

"Fuck off," said Sandor, pulling him up by his arms.

"Gods, not again, please…" moaned Mormont.

"Shut your hole."

His feet dragged, catching on loose cobblestone and nearly sending him pitching forward at every turn. Mormont had gone silent after the first twenty feet, but he was still warm to the touch, and this was all Sandor had to go by as he navigated his way past Shit Street, a stretch of road that was so-called named for the latrine that ran right down the middle of it. He had never been happier to see the street in all of its filthy, disgusting glory, for it led right out to the Blackwater.

Mormont's legs gave an involuntary kick and Sandor nearly dropped him, not expecting such movement from a man so close to death. He pulled the knight off of his shoulder once again and saw that more blood had spilled out from his mouth, ruining the little bird's hard work in cleaning him. He bled from his ears, his nose, and his mouth. With the amount of blood he had lost, it was the work of something greater than willpower. Divine intervention, perhaps, but not Mormont's determination alone. He should have been dead long ago.

"We're nearly there," Sandor told him, resetting his makeshift bandages, knowing it made no difference now. It was easier to not face facts and remain blissfully ignorant; it couldn't hurt as badly this way.

"The wolves are running…" said Mormont, watching something just beyond Sandor with the eagerness of a green boy seeing his first fight.

"I'm sure they are."

"I see her, Sandor. She's with them."

This was mad talk.

"I have to go after her."

Sandor took Mormont's head in both hands, squeezing hard enough to puncture the skin, but it was a necessity to make the man feel pain and keep him grounded. The further away he slipped toward these visions of running wolves, the closer Sandor was to losing him to that world completely and that was not something Sandor could allow. Not after everything, not like this. His thumbs dug into the apples of Mormont's cheeks and Mormont gave a tiny yip of pain, peering at him through clouded eyes. If already a white veil was descending over his eyes, it might even now be too late…but no, not yet.

"Not yet," Sandor growled, not necessarily at Mormont.

"I have to…" he pleaded.

"Oh, no, you don't." Sandor turned the knight away from him and joined his hands at Mormont's chest, now dragging him. The Blackwater was so close, if Mormont could just last…

"Let me go to her," said Mormont and as Sandor felt hot droplets land on his hands, he was pulled up short, spinning Mormont back around to see the knight's sickly face awash in tears. He had stooped to begging now, as Sandor had, but Mormont had not given him mercy in the moment he had asked for it and Sandor was in no way inclined to grant him an unmet favor.

"I forbid you to die until I fucking say so. Are you listening to me, you bastard?"

"Sandor, you can't…against this," said Mormont, though his voice had dropped to a shadow of a whisper and Sandor was surprised he could hear it at all.

Seizing Mormont's tunic in both hands, he lifted him upright, leveling his feet on the ground even though Sandor was holding all of his weight, weight that suddenly didn't seem like very much at all. He might as well have been the girl's size for how light he felt. Under the messy painting of red, he was almost transparent.

Cold hands rested on Sandor's forearms, giving soft pressure, reassuring him.

_Not yet_, he growled inwardly. They couldn't have him yet, dammit.

"Not until I fucking say so, damn you, Jorah Mormont," Sandor repeated. "By the gods who hear me now, if you die on me, I'll find another priest to bring you back to life just so I can fucking kill you for inconveniencing me."

Mormont choked, spilling a handful of blood from his lips and showing the stained teeth behind. The choke dissolved into half a chuckle with a smile that extended from his lips to his eyes, his misted grayish-blue eyes that were completely focused on Sandor, saying goodbye. His mouth moved wordlessly, but the words he wanted to say had some meaning to him, enough that he was using up the last moments of his life to get them out. The crow's feet wrinkles on the outer corners of his eyes pulled up, the tension in his forehead released, and his grin broadened for just a moment before it all gave way. His eyes looked without seeing.

Still holding him upright, Sandor felt the exact moment in his hands when the soul fled the body. Mormont grew lighter, what little color he had retained disappeared and his skin lost whatever warmth had remained. The blood saturating his tunic went cold in unison with its master's demise.

"Fuck."

Sandor set Mormont down on his back, one hand on his wound and the other on his heart, beating it like mad to rouse him.

"Mormont, you fucking cunt, not today, gods damn you."

Once, just fucking _once _he needed something to sway in his favor. Something needed to go right and if only one thing would, he needed it to be this.

He was bruising the skin, battering at Mormont's chest, waiting for a sign of life that he knew godsdamned well was not coming, but he couldn't bring himself to stop until finally, his efforts drew more blood from Mormont's mouth. He collapsed on all fours, hunched over Mormont's body, protecting it from the flames. As the sound of the world around him began to die out, he stayed that way, fighting against himself to let go now or hold on just a while longer.

"_FUCK!_" he roared, tearing at his face with his bloodied nails. He pulled Mormont against him, setting his friend's head against his thighs and draping an arm across Mormont's chest. He used the man as a shield against—he didn't know what, but having the body there was a false security, a way to keep the demons at bay as Sandor searched the heavens for an answer from the gods, but the gods did not exist here. They never had, not for him.

Fuck them all.

It wasn't fucking fair. The gods couldn't hate him this much, to make him burn again, to let his brother hurt him again, to snatch Mormont away when Sandor fully admitted to himself that he needed the knight. He was being made to atone for all of the sins of mankind with his luck.

His face was damp; he tasted salt on his tongue, and not just from blood. There was heat at his back, a warning that the flames were close now and if he did not get up, this was where his scorched skeleton would lay. He felt the scream rising within him and knew that once it reached its peak, he would not be able to contain it. King's Landing would hear him shatter, and it would be the last sound to ever come from him.

_On your feet._

The disembodied voice was one he had never heard before, deep and reverberating, powerful enough to urge his body to stand without his permission. His arms were scooping Mormont up of their own accord, his heart beating against his will. He walked forward, his footfalls steady as wildfire erupted behind him. There was no way for him to control his own actions; something else was powering him into motion. He walked until his knees knocked against the low-sitting balcony that overlooked Blackwater Bay.

Leaning outward, he tried to judge the distance of the drop and whether or not it would kill him if he tried to jump it, but there was no time to guess; he could only hope. He cut a length of rope currently being used to dangle a lantern over the side of the balcony and tied one end to his wrist, the other to Mormont's. He would not chance losing his friend's body during the drop.

Rumbling beneath him warned him of another explosion and he dropped to his knees, covering Mormont's body once again. He felt something searing across his back and ripped off his tunic, watching the material smolder with wildfire. Standing up, he saw that more fire had caught on the sandstone wall, blocking him from the bay. The only way in was through, straight through the fire.

The gods delighted in trying to fuck him up the arse this night.

The wall was low enough that he could jump it, even with additional weight. If he jumped, the fall might kill him if the fire didn't first, but if he stayed here, he would burn, _burn. _It was no contest. Between dying and burning, he would choose death every time.

Sandor replaced Mormont across his shoulders.

Dancing flames made patterns across his eyeballs, branding into his vision and somewhere, he heard his brother laughing…

He leaped and took the plunge, falling away into nothing.

/ /

Someone had an uncomfortable hold across his neck, choking him. He spluttered and felt sea water come up his throat. Thinking that the whoreson who had a hold on him meant to throttle him, he swatted out, splashing and sending more water up his nose.

"Oi, you'd best stop that," snarled a voice he knew well.

Sandor brought the bloody face of the sellsword into focus. He had been sliced across one eyelid and there was nothing beneath it to salvage, but with his remaining eye, he was glaring at Sandor as the two of them tread water.

"You're a heavy fucker and I can't lug you all the way to shore, now help me!" Bronn shouted, kicking at Sandor beneath the waves.

Sandor started to use a lopsided breaststroke, but his waterlogged clothes were made heavier by the dead weight of the dead man still tied to his arm.

"You have to cut 'im loose, he'll drag you both to the bottom."

"Try it and I'll force your eye down your throat, you cunt," Sandor promised, clipping Bronn across the head with his free arm.

"Now, you quit that, hear me?" Bronn splashed water straight into Sandor's face.

Now angry, Sandor tried to clout him again but received only a mouthful of more water, then another until he gargled out a plea to make the sellsword stop.

"Don't you try to hit me again, you fucker. I'm saving you and if you won't cut your friend free, you have to help me."

The sellsword coiled his arm around Sandor, for there was nothing to grasp at to drag him along but Sandor's chest hair, as he had removed his tunic when it caught fire. Bronn was a powerful swimmer, able to support himself, a man of Sandor's size, and the additional weight of a lifeless body bobbing about at the rear. Sandor did his best to assist, but he was far too concerned with watching the rope that bound Mormont's body to him.

A constant stream of insults laced with encouragement from the sellsword such as, "Kick, you big fuck," were constantly making their way into Sandor's rattled brain, but all he could do was use his one arm and keep paddling.

Finally, Sandor felt his knees scuff against something below him and found that they had come up on the beach, well out of reach of the city and close to where there were thousands of tents erected just beyond the tree line. Bronn tossed him down into the sand and Sandor dragged himself forward with his upper body strength alone, lugging Mormont along with him until only his legs remained in the shallows. Ash was raining here as well, obscuring what might have been an otherwise cloudless, clear night sky. The stars were invisible, but Sandor still searched for them. A heavy shape descended upon him, growing larger and closer until Sandor realized what he was looking at.

The green dragon, the one who always had to take a whiff of Sandor's arse—Rhaegal, as Mormont had called it—landed on the beach, churning up wet sand in all directions as it moved around to where Sandor was unwilling to budge, even to acknowledge it. It lowered its enormous head to rest beside Mormont and took a hopeful sniff.

The absence of the black and red dragon confirmed what Sandor had only just now considered: it was dead. Its numerous wounds had been too grievous and it had succumbed to them after giving its last to protect the man who had been closest to its mother. With Mormont's help, the dragons had survived into adulthood, and the largest of them had repaid the favor in taking the spears and slashes meant to kill Mormont, Sandor, and the girl.

And its brother Rhaegal was left to witness it. As its nostrils flared to make sense of Mormont's decaying scent, Sandor almost could have believed that he saw sadness in those reptilian eyes.

It knew. Its kin were dead, its mother was dead, its friend was dead, and it was bitterly alone in the world. An ear-shattering screech ripped out of its throat as it lifted its head and keened to the skies. It nudged Mormont with its nose and even attempted to turn him over with one claw, but Mormont would not rise and the dragon snorted into the dead knight's face insistently.

_He's gone_, Sandor projected, willing the beast to understand him. It tore a new hole in his chest to watch the dragon push and nuzzle expectantly at the body of Sandor's friend like a child seeking to wake a parent that would not be coming back.

Mormont was not meant to die this way. He had earned better for himself, in Sandor's eyes. He had earned more and received less. Dragons could sense that, sense the injustice that had run afoul of the gods here, and it was angry at the gods as well.

"Come on, you're bleeding something fierce. We'd best find you a maester or someone who isn't burning," said Bronn from off to Sandor's left, though his voice sounded winded and wounded now.

The dragon saw the sellsword moving in to help Sandor sit up and it slammed its wing down between the two of them. The tremor set the world spinning and Sandor counted two green dragons overhead. Two dragon heads became four and then merged back together to create one as the beast lowered itself over Sandor. He saw the nostrils twitch, saw a fiery orange light building in the back of its throat.

_It means to burn me. It thinks I killed him_, he thought wildly.

He knew better. The dragon liked him, for some odd, unexplainable reason that Sandor did not give much thought until now. And it was an incredibly intelligent beast; it would know what Sandor had done to try and save Mormont.

White-hot steam scorched the open wound, cauterizing it, sealing it, and Sandor could only hear his voice finally breaking with the last of its power. His abused throat could support sound no longer. Not burning, but feeling heat pressed unbearably close to his skin, he didn't understand this pain.

He lay beneath the dragon for a time, unafraid of it peering down its nose at him, watching him intently. There was something deceivingly trance-like about those red irises, almost like a viper luring him in to strike when he least expected it. Voices were gathering, belonging to the dead and the living, though he no longer could recall to which of them he belonged. He heard himself chuckling, though he wasn't sure if that was real or his grasp on reality finally snapping after weeks of being put under the iron and the rod and the flame. Both of them, the two Stark girls who were the source of his troubles, the reason for his suffering, were kneeling over him. The elder sister and her burned face, the younger sister looking as untouched as the day he had first been reunited with her. And they were scared for him: the girl with her baleful brown eyes and the little bird with her tear-filled blue ones. So different to him, yet the same in how he had mindlessly chosen to put himself through hell to protect them. The one he admired and the one he wanted.

He blinked and then saw faces he did not know as well as a few he did. The sellsword, Jon Snow, the Dragon Queen, the girl, the Lady of Winterfell, and Jorah Mormont. He tried to call out to Mormont, but he blinked once more and saw only his little bird. He made to ask for the girl, wondering where she had gone, but he couldn't remember her name.

His little bird's tears landed in his beard, giving him courage to touch her one last time as he felt himself slipping into an abyss filled with dragon and wolf song. He reached up and found her lower lip with his thumb, caressing the soft padding there before his hand fell back with a resounding finality and made an imprint in the sand.

There came the clinking of chains, he caught the glimpse of a black robe, but it was becoming difficult to see at all. His little bird was crying, such a terrible, mortifying sound of a helpless being. Her flaming hair hung over his face and turned to tendrils of fire which reached their numerous arms out to him, kissing his skin and setting his face alight.


	25. Chapter 25: Never Wanted to Leave

**SANSA**

Bronn ran at her like a charging bull, catching her around the waist, but she held her ground, leaning forward onto him to keep her balance as he tried to use his weight to knock her over. She had seen men tussle like this, bare-chested, sweaty, and filthy in gambling pits but never could have placed bets that she would be doing the same with the man sworn to protect her. Bronn took liberties with her, not unlike the Hound, but his were done with only the intention of bettering her in her endeavors. She had been tested against the blade but not another man in a bare-knuckled fight and though she knew Bronn would not dare strike her to prove a point, he was offering her a valuable lesson in how a man could use his weight against her.

"You're not going to throw a man off if you wait for him to make the next move," Bronn told her, his voice coming to her from her midsection as he kept hold of her, trying to interfere with her footing and trip her. "You have to _do _something. Be on the offense for once."

"How do I take the offense if I'm defending myself from you?" asked Sansa impatiently.

"Get me off've you. Hit me."

Not wanting a repeat of her incident with the Hound where she had given him a sore muscle between his legs, Sansa was hesitant, and when Bronn sensed her no longer trying to counter his efforts to put her in the dirt, he let go and stood upright.

"We ready to give up, then?"

"How hard are you going to try and make me hit you until you are satisfied?" asked Sansa.

"You won't hurt me, m'lady. This's how we're trained as lads, bumps and bruises are to be expected. But if you don't get a feel for it now, you won't know how hard you have to hit a man when it matters most."

She had slapped the Hound to no effect, so she didn't see the point in this, but Bronn did, and his judgment had served her well thus far. She showed him that she was ready to go again and Bronn came at her. With a flat hand, she slapped him across the cheek and as he pulled up short, she felt elated that she did possess the strength to stop a man.

Then Bronn let himself fall back into the sand, legs coming up to his chest as he cackled, a wicked sound that showed no signs of letting up soon. He threw his arm across his eyes, utterly at the mercy of his own laughter and Sansa wondered if she might just have to leave him there and trek back into the camp alone. Several times he tried to stop himself, only to dissolve into more of the same helpless giggles until finally, with his eyes streaming, his face flushed, and his chest heaving, he stood up to confront her.

"Forgive me, m'lady," he said, dabbing at his eyes with his sleeve. "But what the fuck was that?"

"That is the last time you will laugh at me, ser," said Sansa heatedly. "I will not stand to be ridiculed for doing as instructed and too often have you found amusement in my lack of experience."

"You're too kind for this world, m'lady," said Bronn. "Even if it means learning to save your own life, you still have a gentle hand when you fight. I almost didn't feel that slap, t'was so light-handed in its delivery."

Sansa was about to argue that she had already killed a man and knew what was expected to properly end one when the time came but just then he smacked her across the head. It was not a hard hit, only enough to shock her.

"Hit me back," he invited.

"If Jon saw what you just did—"

He hit her again indifferently.

"Come on, then," he said. "Come have a go."

"Now, that is enough—"

"Why, you gettin' angry? Isn't that what your Hound told you to do, get angry?"

He swatted at her again, making contact with her cheek light enough to sting, but not hard enough to leave a telltale mark.

"Come on, fuckin' hit me, girl!"

She knew he was goading her on, tempting her into a fight as the Hound had, and she decided that she was finished being treated like she couldn't strike a proper blow unless someone was there to egg her on. If Bronn wanted her to hit him, she would oblige him. She balled a fist and aimed for his cheek, but her arm was longer than she thought and she overestimated its reach. Instead of the soft flesh of his cheek, she felt her knuckle bones make contact with his nose.

"_Fuck!_" he shouted, cupping his hands around his nose and doubling over.

"Did I break it?" asked Sansa, now second guessing herself and wondering if she should have tried to pull back. Could she do nothing right when it came to defending herself?

Bronn tipped his head back, snorted, and tested the bridge bone. "It's still broken from when your Hound hit me in the godswood, but I don't think you made it worse, if that's what has you worried." Then, blood began to pour from both nostrils and he sat down to pinch at it.

Sansa would have offered him her handkerchief, but in her new clothes, she did not think to carry such a thing. She was saved the trouble of finding something to stem the bloodflow as Ghost returned from a hunt, circled them curiously, and then approached Bronn. The wolf tracked down the source of blood that had undoubtedly been what brought him in close and sat down opposite Bronn expectantly.

"What?" asked Bronn somewhat testily.

Ghost snapped at him and Bronn let his temper get the better of him as he yelled at the wolf in a bold (or perhaps stupid) move. "You can't drag me from a burning tent one moment and show your teeth at me the next, you hairy bastard."

"He wants to lick the blood. I expect he enjoys the taste," said Sansa.

"He can piss off. No wolf is going to lick my face clean—"

Ghost pounced, flattening Bronn in the mud and pressing down on his chest. Bronn did not scream for Sansa to call him off as he had before, not with the shift in his and Ghost's strained and unstable relationship, but he did swear at the wolf. Ghost sat on him to prevent him from getting up and began licking at the blood coating his upper lip despite Bronn's feeble attempts to push him off.

"Godsdammit, that hurts, you fucker," Bronn griped, but Ghost ignored his protests until he had licked up the last of the blood, then walked away in the direction of the camp.

Before Bronn could holler after him, a terrifying sound wreaked havoc on his ears and Sansa's. Both of them clapped their hands to their heads to shield their eardrums, but there was no mistaking the sound.

It was a desolate cry of children longing for their mother, and it was coming from the direction of King's Landing, not two miles northwest from the camp's location.

"She didn't," said Bronn when there came a break in the screeching. "She didn't just…fucking hells. Come on." He held out his hand to Sansa and all but dragged her back to camp, sword out and ready, though they came across no one.

The camp was in a state of panic with the words carrying like an untamable breeze: _the queen is dead._

In hindsight, Sansa would think back to what she might have done to stop Daenerys that night, even though she had no idea what task the queen had in mind at their last parting. There was no foretelling, though, no hint as to what undertaking Daenerys was about to do. They had concluded a supper at the war council in a heavily guarded and newly constructed tent since the last had gone up in flames. At the conclusion of the meeting, they had said their good nights to one another, no different than the past several, and then Sansa had gone to a late-night training session with Bronn in final preparation for the battle to come.

But now the queen was dead, her favored dragon severely wounded, and her army in mourning. There was heavy dispute on how the last of the Targaryens had met her end. She had gone without her army knowing, taking only Jon atop the other dragon as her companion. No one could doubt that her maneuver had been bold, but brilliant, attacking at night with the enemy having no clear shot at her or the dragons. It was the one timeframe that could conceal them all as they attacked the keep, but it was also their one chance, for if they did not succeed, there would be no do-overs.

Half the battlements were now in flames, according to Jon, but the castle remained standing, Sansa could see that her brother was hurting and she understood his pain, but her own heart was working madly to sustain her as she harbored horrible thoughts of what might be happening even now to the Hound. Daenerys had broken the rules of engagement and now Cersei was free to kill both the Hound and Ser Jorah, but Daenerys had not accomplished what she set out to do in taking back her prisoners or killing Cersei, leaving only the slightest hope that Cersei would spare the two as leverage against Sansa. Cersei would know that Sansa and Jon now led the Targaryen army and it was this infinitesimal chance that Sansa was relying on at the moment as she watched her brother stand defeated at the council table.

Tyrion, Lord Varys, Ser Davos, Grey Worm, and Missandei listened to him explain how Daenerys had flown the black dragon Drogon into the clouds and then dropped onto the Red Keep from above, spraying the armed soldiers with fire and causing many to jump from the ramparts in favor of extinguishing themselves in the filth of the Blackwater far below. But for all of Daenerys's wily planning, Cersei must have anticipated a night assault, for she had stationed scorpions in unlikely places and had her men shoot at the dragons while they were busy destroying the same weapons that were visible on the walls. Jon had flown the green dragon Rhaegal out of scorpion reach, doubling back around when he saw a bolt fly close enough to Daenerys that she had no choice but to throw herself from her dragon's back.

"Did the bolt find its mark?" asked Lord Varys when Jon paused in his story.

"She wasn't shot out of the sky. I saw it. Drogon took four bolts and the fifth would have impaled her, but she fell from him. He went after her, he caught her, and he crashed inside the inner bailey. I don't believe that he dropped her or would have gone without her but you all saw it yourselves that he's wounded enough to hardly be able to fly. He had four more bolts in him when he came up, but he didn't have her. Something happened between the time he caught her and when he took to the air again, but she wasn't shot off of him. She was alive when he caught her. I took Rhaegal down to search for her, but then…then they started screaming."

They had felt their connection to their mother sever. If Daenerys had been alive when she fell from Drogon, if she had been alive when he rose back up out of the keep without her, she no longer was once they started crying for her. They would not make such dreadful sounds if their mother was merely a prisoner.

"There are conflicting reports on the matter," said Lord Varys, the only one of the council to show no remorse, as was befitting a man of his position. He did not emote; he only observed. "Scouts who saw the battle unfold say that the queen took a bolt to the heart—"

"I was closer than they were and I know what I saw," Jon insisted.

"Is it so difficult to believe that she could be killed by mortal weapons? Some would say you are invincible as well with how many times you have shirked death even after being brought back by the Red Priestess when your fellow brothers of the Night's Watch murdered you. And you were killed by mortal weapons. Our queen was no different, except unlucky that no such priestess remains to bring her back."

"But she _was _different," said Jon. "She had Drogon with her, a powerful creature nearly invincible to man-made weapons and of all the dragons, he would never have let that happen to her. She didn't take that bolt to the chest; she was alive when she fell, and then she wasn't there. She had a connection to them that should have saved her."

"But she's gone," said Sansa, knowing that Jon would listen to no one but her if he listened at all. "The dragons know it, and by that token, so do we. She's dead, regardless of how she died, and you can't obsess over finding out how when this is now your war to wage. You were her most trusted confidant, you and Tyrion, but now that she's gone, you are the man her armies will follow. You led a nation before you knew her, now you must lead another without her."

"I concur with Lady Sansa," offered Lord Varys. "We do not fight now for the throne, but to avenge our queen and take back the kingdom that would have flourished under her reign. It is our duty as her advisors to continue her efforts and see this through to whatever bitter end."

"We will," said Jon dangerously, and Sansa saw that same savagery reappear that she had first witnessed when he beat Ramsay into near unconsciousness, still bristling in rage over Rickon's murder. There was no rage quite like a Stark's, but Sansa had only ever witnessed his, not her father's or her mother's, or Robb's. Jon's anger was frightening because it began as a glare and a promise, but could escalate into something uncontrollable. "Alert the armies. We take the city in two days' time."

"Jon, after tonight, the next move is Cersei's," said Sansa. She had meant that in the wake of their queen's death, the armies would rally to Jon and follow his lead, not that he must declare war right this instant. "We have retreated for the time being and if we attack again, there is nothing to stop her from killing innocents to keep us at bay. You wouldn't allow me to make a mistake when Cersei attempted to barter with me at the parlay. I won't allow you to do something rash on account of the woman you loved."

"The woman I loved is dead because of the man you love," said Jon. It wasn't delivered with malice in mind, but he still said the words and they still cut deep, deeper when she realized that she had a very engrossed audience. "She sent Ser Jorah with him and they were captured and she gave her life to take Ser Jorah back. If the Hound had stayed with you, she would be alive. She did all of that for you, to earn your trust, and look how she was repaid."

"Do you blame me for her death?" she asked, not ready to hear him admit it.

"I blame myself for not stopping her. I blame myself for letting her send Ser Jorah with the Hound. She would not have done the things she did if he was by her side."

"Cersei will expect us to negotiate further terms after tonight," said Tyrion, finding his voice amidst his grief. "We have lost this battle and she will expect us to lick our wounds and wait for a summons. Now is the time to take her by surprise, before she can position the Golden Company at the gates."

"But even if we were to launch a surprise attack, how would we take the city if there stands a forty foot wall to stop us from entering? We could marshal our armies and mount our siege ladders, but there are hundreds of Lannister soldiers stationed atop the walls to hold us back."

"We have a way inside," said Jon. "And once we're inside, no army of mercenaries will be able to stop us. We have the numbers; our only obstacle was the wall up until now, but once we're through, Cersei will have no choice but to surrender. The men have their orders to kill only those who would take up a sword against them and to leave all others untouched."

"Those rules have never applied to Cersei. She will use every last child in the city as a barrier between us and her—"

"If we make it inside the walls," began Tyrion.

"_When_ we make it inside the walls," Jon corrected.

"Pardon me if I seemed skeptical. _When_ we make it inside the walls, Cersei will see that nothing can hold back the armies of the North and she will turn to means of escaping. Our fleet will be watching the bay to ensure that no ships are allowed in or out in case she has bought passage to stow away on one. All entrances to the city will be covered and she has no knowledge at her disposal that our own Lord Varys has not already procured that would allow her to escape through a secret passage. She will attempt to flee as her armies continue to fight for her, unaware that their queen has deserted them, but when they see that the keep has fallen, they will initiate a surrender."

"Giving men the order to not fire upon the smallfolk doesn't mean that those lives are suddenly safe from the horrors of invasion," Sansa reasoned. "And I make no claim to know Daenerys's armies as she did, but even if we give the command to the Northerners and the Unsullied, the Dothraki pillage and rape when they conquer their enemies. The men of the Golden Company take spoils of war when they see an opportunity. The people are not safe if we turn their city into a battlefield."

"Most of them will have the good enough sense to flee and when they do, we'll be ready to take them," said Ser Davos.

"But what of those who do not have the good enough sense to flee? Those who can't? The elderly, the crippled? They will be the first victims."

"You would not be referring to others who are not in a position to flee at the moment, would you?" asked Jon accusingly. "Men who are currently prisoners of the crown?"

"I am not so narrow-minded that my only concern is for Sandor Clegane and Ser Jorah," said Sansa coldly. "But they will also be casualties of war in addition to the hundreds of men, women, and children caught between two clashing armies if we do not find some other way to take the city."

"That was what Daenerys sought to do from the beginning," said Jon. "Take the keep, spare the city and the lives of its people, but that approach did not work, as you well know, otherwise we would be having a different discussion at the small council table within the Red Keep. Her reserve plan was to take the city as quickly and efficiently as possible with the least amount of bloodshed. Believe me, Sansa, I'm not making amends to her plans to suit my own desires. I want the war over, I want it to be done with, and this is the way."

"But—"

"Lady Sansa, if Cersei wants her prisoners dead, then they are already dead and delaying the attack will not change that fact," said Tyrion with pained sympathy present on his scarred face. "If they are still alive—"

"They are," confirmed Arya, entering the tent unannounced as she always did. "At least, they were from what I last heard when I left the castle today. If Lord Varys has drawn up the final map, Ser Jaime and I can station ourselves and begin."

"I have," confirmed Lord Varys. "I will go over the finer details with you and Ser Jaime at the conclusion of this meeting."

"This meeting is concluded," said Jon. "Prepare the armies."

Sansa did not understand why none of the queen's advisors were interjecting to persuade Jon to wait. They had been camped a short distance from the capital for near-on a month now with no end to their wait in sight, yet the sudden death of the queen merited unquestionable war? Daenerys wanted an end to the war, yes, but frontal assault had never been her strategy and even if the armies managed to scale the walls, there was still the matter of the thousands of civilian lives in jeopardy. The queen would have found a way to bring the battle outside the city if a direct attack on the keep did not work.

She and Sansa did not agree on everything, but they both had had the peoples' best interests at heart. Jon was no different, Tyrion was no different, yet they somehow were not seeing the likely massacre to follow this hastily constructed plan. Jon she could understand, for he knew war better than any of them, knew that there was no way to satisfy the need for vengeance but with blood and he would take that chance while he still was able.

But Tyrion, who she had been sure would take her side and see reason, was opting in favor of Jon's plan. Only Arya had taken her side. Arya, who cared for the Hound more than anyone in attendance besides Sansa, who was now holding Sansa's hands with urgency.

"I'll find him," she promised Sansa as the tent emptied. "I promise you, I'll find him, but you have to promise me that you'll stay far away from the city."

"There'll be a slaughter," Sansa warned.

"Yes, I expect there will be, and you're to stay far away from it. I know you've been working hard to be battle-ready, but you've had less than three months to practice swordplay and they aren't going to line up one at a time for you to have a go at them. This will be chaos and blood and you aren't prepared for that. Stay with Ser Bronn, away from the city, and I'll find you after."

With a quick kiss to Sansa's cheek, she was gone, off to receive her final instructions from Lord Varys.

Feeling helpless and as if she were quickly losing her grip on what little control of the situation that she had, Sansa appealed to Bronn who now came in closer to her with the dismissal of the council. Surely he, of all people, would have something reassuring to say to her. With Jon leading the charge and Arya attempting to find the Hound in hostile territory, Sansa would be completely alone, an observer to the carnage and not a participant.

"This morning I had such high hopes of victory, of salvaging something from this war," she told Bronn dismally. "How did it come to this? How could one woman's death have such a profound effect on everything? How could one woman change the course of the future?"

"If you're the last Stark left standing when this is over, I expect you'll find out, m'lady," said Bronn.

/ /

It was with a heavy heart that Sansa bade Jon farewell on the eve of battle. His admittance that first and foremost he blamed the Hound's departure for Daenerys's death had been a breaking point between the two of them. Sansa could forgive him for his words, but she could not earn forgiveness for herself for making the Hound a priority during a time of war. And so she had embraced Jon, feeling the stiffness in his lean frame as he took to his horse.

As a bystander, Sansa tried not to process the scene before her as she watched Jon launch the attack two nights hence. The city lights illuminated the battle scene: the dragons blasted a fiery hole through what had been the south gate and the Northern armies charged to meet unsuspecting commoners and soldiers alike. Surprise was on their side and as the smallfolk fled, the soldiers began to surrender. It promised to be a quick battle, over within the hour, but victory had never come so easily and Sansa had a terrible feeling of foreboding as she watching Gold Cloaks and Lannister soldiers throw down their weapons.

The ground shuddered in a tremor felt even from Sansa's vantage point at the treeline a quarter mile from what had used to be the city gates. She saw the eastern tower of the Red Keep erupt in a billowing cloud of green and grey and fall away into the city below. It came in ripples, first within the castle itself, then slowly growing outward and larger with every addition of another burst of wildfire. The city was going up in green flames and the explosions were powerful enough to vibrate Sansa's ribs as she watched orderly surrender dissolve into chaos.

"Tell me that mad bitch didn't just set off a chain explosion of wildfire," said Bronn in horrified, fixated awe beside her.

"Arya and Jon are in there," said Sansa blankly, and started forward. As she expected, Bronn grabbed her to stop her, but he was holding back, perhaps frightened by the flames he had experienced once before that were unlike those of regular fire, unable to be doused so easily by water. Water only made the wildfire rage on angrier and brighter.

"Don't try it," said Bronn.

"My sister is in there," Sansa repeated. "My brother is in there."

"And neither of them would thank me for letting you run headlong into wildfire when you're in the safest place you could be. You're not fucking going in there when the flames are half a mile high," said Bronn. "How d'you expect to find your siblings in there anyhow? They might already be charred meat. You made me your shield, but I'm not dying because you wanted to wait until you were twenty years old to grow a set of balls."

"If you want me to change my mind about your punishment, then by all means, stay here, but my sister is in there. My brother is in there, and if he's still alive, so is Sandor Clegane. I have to do something, I _will _do something. So you will come with me and see that we both live, or you will stay here and die regardless of whether or not I return."

Bronn gave her the dirtiest look she had seen yet from him, one that told her quite frankly to fuck off, but then he muttered, "Fuck me with a rusted spoon." He took a belt from his horse and threw it around her waist, tying it off snugly against her middle. He slipped a short sword sheath onto it and then placed a dagger on the opposite side of the Valyrian one she wore within easy reach. Then he grabbed her forearm in a pinched grip and pulled her within two inches of his face.

"You stick close to me, no matter what happens. If I need help in there, you use those to either save me or kill me and then yourself because I'm not going to live to experience what Cersei wants to do to me. If you do something stupid, I'll drag your arse back here, chain you to your bedpost, and sit on you for good measure because I'm not dying for someone else's fuckery today or any day, especially not—"

"Look," said Sansa, pointing to the outpour at the gates. Anyone not burning was taking part in the mass evacuation of the city, trampling one another to clear the gates and reach open space. The commonfolk came first, but were quickly overwhelmed by horses and giant grey creatures with enormous ears and trunks that smacked aside anything that stood in their way.

"Those are fuckin' elephants," said Bronn in awe. "She _did_ get the elephants."

"Are those her soldiers on horseback?" asked Sansa, seeing the gold-plated cavalry coming toward them.

"They were. The Golden Company, hired from across the Narrow Sea. But she's trying to burn them too and they're runnin' the fuck out of there like sellswords are wont to do."

Sansa made no comment on him berating men now in the same line of work as his own humble beginnings, too intent on watching one of the mercenaries overtake a woman fleeing with a babe still at the breast. Four horses rode her down and she did not rise.

Clapping a hand to her mouth in horror at this complete disregard for human life, Sansa began to run toward the exodus, if only to attract the sellswords and draw them away from the people. They would know her by her hair and give chase and—

"Where the hells d'you think you're going?" asked Bronn, stopping her once again. "Every one of those men knows to look for a red-headed woman."

"Precisely."

"You're not suggestin'—"

"I am."

"That's not going to help you find your siblings or your Hound, girl."

"It might help someone, though, someone that those men are about to trample to death."

"No," said Bronn, standing firm on his decision. "I'll come with you into the city, but I still have a chance at protecting you if that's all we do. If you run out in front of hundreds of galloping horse just to distract their riders, I can't protect you worth a damn. As noble as your intentions are, m'lady, your sacrifice would accomplish nothing."

He was right, of course, but it still took everything Sansa had to not allow herself to be seen as they steered their horses around the masses to approach the city from the east. The gates had been thrown open here as well, though it was mainly the working class that expelled from within in not quite the same amount of bedlam as there had been on the other side of the city. The people parted easily enough when they saw Sansa and Bronn attempting to enter the city, though they shouted dire warnings of death at them in return.

"Put your hood up," said Bronn when at last they made their way into the city and caught the full stench of it in all its glory.

Sansa did as instructed without questions, taking in the size of the city once again and realizing how ill-thought-out this plan was. How was she to find Jon and Arya in this? How could she make a difference to their fates if she could not find them?

They rode on in silence, coming across only fleeing migrants as they entered the southern square that had been host to a mummer's show when Sansa first entered the city as a child. It had been so bright and welcoming as she recalled, but was now in a state of ruin with casualties of war already strewn about.

"Where do you suggest we start searching, m'lady?" asked Bronn in a condescending tone she did not appreciate when she was already wounded in pride.

A streetside battle answered him as ten armed soldiers of the Golden Company swamped the square, locked in combat with six Northmen, including Jon. The Northerners were losing the battle, and fast. Sansa knew a warning from Bronn to not engage was coming, but she ignored it and charged her horse into the fray with Bronn swearing and urging his gelding to follow. She took two soldiers in a blindsided attack, but as her horse made impact, she was thrown from her saddle, landing painfully on her tailbone. Bronn led his horse on to run down the closest soldier who had taken notice of Sansa, but another soldier had belted Bronn across the face with his spear butt and Bronn fell from his horse whilst simultaneously drawing his dirk. His action saved his life, for he caught the soldier's blade with his own and then swiped out at the man's legs with the dirk. Scrambling for the spear that had knocked him from his mount, Sansa snatched it up and drove it into its owner's back with punishing force. She brandished it in front of her as a shield while Bronn hurried to stand beside her.

He cut down another soldier, leaving the Northmen to finish off the rest and as they stood among their kills, Sansa saw Jon come to the realization of who his saviors were. He was as far from pleased as it was possible to look.

"Sansa," Jon gasped. "What in seven hells are you doing here?" He rounded on Bronn, taking him by the collar and shaking him. "Why is she here? Why in the hells did you let her come?"

"It was by her order—"

"I don't care what she ordered. Your duty is to stop her from doing things like this that could get her killed!"

"Aye, but if I had, you'd be dead now, you ungrateful fuck," said Bronn, stepping out of Jon's reach and straightening his collar.

"Get her out of here now or I'll have your head when this is all over," Jon vowed. "Of that you can be certain, ser."

"Jon," Sansa began, but he cut her short, planting a heavy and meaningful kiss upon her brow.

"Whatever happens after, I'm sorry," he told her. "I love you, and I'm sorry."

If those were not the words of a man about to walk to his death, Sansa was an elephant. But Bronn pulled her away, back toward the eastern gate as Jon and his men rejoined the rest of the army, heading inward to purge the city.

"We are not through here yet," Sansa told Bronn when she could no longer see Jon.

"Oh, yes, we are. We saved your brother and that's enough excitement for you until your dying day, girl."

Sansa planted herself firmly on the ground to further argue the point when the sound of crumbling brick made her glance up to see the southern bell tower toppling over them. Bronn gave her a hard shove in the chest and she fell backward, carried by both the downward slope of the street and his push. Upon landing, she covered her head and waited for the world to stop crashing around her. Only particles of dust and splintered wood still rained down on her when she felt it safe enough to emerge from her arms.

She now had the ruins of an entire burning building separating her from Bronn who she could hear calling to her from the other side in a voice fringed with fear—for her.

Blocked off completely with no way to reunite with Bronn and in no position to sit about waiting for him to come find her, Sansa fled the scene. She only had a mind to find some place not covered in flames and ash to breathe properly and find her bearings, but with shouting, trumpeting, and crashing all around, she could not think straight. Hand trailing along the walls of a blacksmith shop, she inhaled and choked on the stale air.

Her instincts told her to find shelter, if only for a moment, but she continued walking for an additional five minutes just to give herself an extra sense of security. Once inside a house with no living occupants to speak of, she retched on the floor until she had thoroughly emptied the contents of her stomach. With nary a second to herself, she heard something heavy fall against the door from outside and casting about for something solid with which to arm herself, she found a wooden plank that had used to hold up part of the window and took a wide, defensive stance just behind the door as it began to open and she heard a man's labored breathing.

Remembering the most sensitive areas to strike a man, she swung the plank as soon as she saw the man's nose and then struck again in the nether regions before she found herself slammed against the wall with a sword at her gullet. But it was him—the Hound.

He was there, for all of two minutes in which she had quite literally thrown herself at him with no intention to ever let go, but then he was gone, and she had to convince herself that he had been real. Her mind would not allow her to sit about idly and so she had begun to scrub the blood from Ser Jorah's face. She could see the gaping wound in his midsection as she changed out the bindings she found there, an enormous thing made by a broadsword or larger, and she wondered how he had come by such an unforgiving stab to the belly. Who had given it to him? And why was the Hound so insistent that she stay with him when already, she knew him to be fading?

What's more, he knew it, and he had accepted it, coming awake in between spells of pained unconsciousness to look her in the eye and of all things, smile at her.

"What amuses you at a time like this, Ser Jorah?" she asked him.

She only received an unintelligible string of words in reply, but he continued to give her a bloody grin as more blood poured from between his lips. _How _he was still alive was beyond her.

When she heard movement outside, she stood in the hopes that the Hound was already returning, yet it had hardly been a quarter of an hour. Going to the window, she peered through the curtains to see two men wearing the colors of the Golden Company shifting through the house just beside this one, stuffing bags full of trinkets and hidden gold. If they entered here to find Sansa and Ser Jorah, they would leave him for dead and do much worse with her. She did not have the option of using a plank on these two men, for if she disarmed one, the other would take over for his companion before she could get in a second swing.

With a hasty explanation to Ser Jorah of what was coming their way, she had unrealistic expectations that he would find some favorable solution and to her greater astonishment, he did have such a thing as his eyes widened and he came into full awareness.

"Leave me…that," he nodded at the Valyrian steel dagger on her left hip and she helped him grasp it, wrapping his sticky red fingers around the handle. "The other room, quickly."

She ran to the adjoining room, leaving the door between propped open just enough to have a clear vantage point. Ser Jorah's face was turned to her, nodding at her for her own reassurance rather than his.

"Wait…wait until…they're on me," said the knight.

They had come laughing and jesting about their spoils, but their lively interaction halted when they saw Ser Jorah, seemingly dead on the floor.

"That's a massive stab wound, that is," said one of the men. "Poor fucker must've run afoul of something enormous."

"See if he's got anything on 'im," said the other.

"He's dressed in piss-stained rags, you think he's got gold stuffed down his breeches?"

All the same, they moved in to begin sifting through Ser Jorah's clothes and Sansa saw the hand that held her dagger move. Wielding a pail from the second room, Sansa burst out of her hiding place, smashing against the door which in turn sent both men sprawling. Then, she saw a change overtake the dying knight as he emitted a sound heavy with the strain of a man who might as well have been holding the weight of the world from collapsing on him.

It was an all-powerful, gut-wrenching scream as the two sellswords landed across his legs and he jammed the dagger into the most accessible part of them, their groins. And when they clutched themselves to stop the bloodflow, he stabbed relentlessly into their necks. They were still gurgling through the holes in their throats when Sansa began to drag them into the neighboring room, but just as she had finished depositing them unceremoniously on the floor, she heard the sound of more just outside the window. Knowing that they would not be so lucky in this farce of Ser Jorah acting the part of a dead man a second time, Sansa looked to him for an answer, a way out of their fast-approaching doom.

"Run, my lady," he whispered. "Run for it."

So she did. She burst through the door, bypassing the men who had been about to come inside to see where their fellows had gone. Her legs covered more distance without the obstacle of the many weighted skirts of a dress to get through, but she had never been fast, even as a child, and her nearly-healed leg still slowed her down more than she could afford so that the men caught up with her as she dodged into what appeared to be an abandoned brothel. She felt one of them throw himself upon her, knocking her legs out from under her.

She slipped the dagger Bronn had given her into her sleeve while she lay on her stomach with her back turned to the men and positioned it with the blade pointed toward her palm. Then, as the man flipped her over, she pressed her arm to her chest under the pretense of guarding her chastity from them.

_If a man gets close enough to her that she needs a dagger to defend herself, she's already dead._

"Fucking minx," said the larger of the two. "No use hiding that now. We're going to see it all before we're done with you." He fell to his knees over her and attempted to pull her arms away from her. She struggled, knowing they would suspect something if she didn't. The other man took over holding her arms down as the former lowered himself across her, running his hand across her cheek, smelling her nape.

_You try to bite a man's knuckles and you'll only make him angrier and he'll slap you with his bleeding hand. If you bite him anywhere, you bite his face or you bite him below._

Sansa counted the seconds in her head, attempting to time this perfectly, or suffer for her hesitation. She squirmed and pleaded and the men laughed, amused at her struggles. They were properly convinced now that she did not intend to fight back.

No Hound would be coming for her this time, though. She was completely alone in her defense with only her dagger at her disposal. A dagger, a weapon in which she had not been trained.

_You have to be merciless every time, with every blow and strike because if you aren't, he'll make sure you don't get the chance to be._

She could hear the Hound's voice, almost feel his hand on her shoulder, holding her back with the advice, _Not yet. Wait for it._

The man atop her put his hands on her belt. He was straddling her, kneeling right above her hips, and she brought her knee up to collide with him from behind. The force sent him straight over, pitching forward at her face and she sank her teeth into flesh as she felt it make contact with her. Knowing that she had less than seconds to dispatch the other, she rolled, throwing the first man off and wrenching her arms free of the second. She let the dagger fall from her sleeve into her hand and drove the blade out without aiming. She had never been as successful in disarming the Hound or Bronn with a dagger; the technique was lost on her. All she knew was that she had to make contact, or die.

With blood running from her lips and to her horror, a piece of flesh on her tongue, she fell onto the second man as if attempting to embrace him, only her dagger had been in hand when she joined with him and it found its mark in the hollow of his throat. He scrabbled at the entry wound, shortening his already brief remaining lifespan, but Sansa let him be as she withdrew her blade and turned it on the man whose flesh was still in her mouth. She found him screaming on the floor, hands clutched over his face and the stump that used to be nose. It was quite easy, quite simple in opening his throat from ear to ear and for the first time she could fully appreciate the Hound's words when he had told her so long ago that killing was the sweetest thing a man could do. A quick flash of steel and she had taken two lives—and she felt no remorse.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sheathed her dagger, somehow finding her way back out into the streets. The building where she left Ser Jorah was back the way she had come, facing west. She committed the sight to memory as she turned and went in the opposite direction in search of stables or some poor animal that had been left tied to a hitching post. The chances of happening upon a mount were astronomically slim, but once the Hound returned with Arya, there would be four of them and if both Arya and Ser Jorah were unable to walk, they would need a more reliable form of transport, whether it be a cart, a horse, or even a mule.

Before long, she found herself in a burning section of the city now mostly deserted apart from a few stragglers who would not leave their cremated loved ones behind. They ignored Sansa as she passed and she broke into a run as the air grew drier around her with the moisture sucked out from the rising flames and falling ash.

Deciding that she had best head back in the direction she had come and try an alternate path, she heard a frenzied trumpeting and stopped in the middle of the street.

"Sansa!"

Bronn plowed toward her atop a saddleless horse with a maddened elephant trailing hot behind him. He was leaning sideways, arm held out to take hers and she extended her hand into the air, knowing they only had one chance at this. His gloved hand closed around forearm and he swung her up behind him with an efficacious grunt. Sansa clutched his waist, burying her face into his back to block the ash from blinding her.

"Told you not to do something stupid, didn't I?" he chided as he made the horse take a sharp left, out of the way of the exotic beast behind them.

"You left me!" she shouted.

"To go find another horse because you led us deep enough into the shittiest part of this shit town with no escape route after a fucking building fell between us—"

"I found them, but there were complications," said Sansa, cutting his telling-off short and he slowed the horse enough to be able to rotate around to look at her. She saw him putting together the pieces from the blood on her hands to the rip in her leather armor and the flecks of red still painted around her mouth.

She did not see Bronn often unravel, for he was a man with little enough human emotion to not have the same reactions as others in the face of terrifying odds, but this, the possibility that someone had hurt her—this _infuriated _him.

He did a complete turn-around with the litheness of a much younger man, now sitting backwards on the horse, and he grasped her shoulders none too gently. "Someone put their hands on you? Did he hurt you?"

"Not gravely," said Sansa, quailing under the intensity of his glare.

"Someone tried to rip your clothes off—"

"Tried," Sansa emphasized. "But I'm still here, which should tell you where he is."

Bronn's hardened gaze softened, but not completely. "You're absolutely sure?"

"My swordmaster made sure of it."

His shoulders relaxed as if he let out a breath he had been holding in anticipation of her answer. Hand on the back of her head, he brought it forward to touch his forehead to hers in an act she might have admonished him for if he had done it at any point earlier than this, but now understood. It was a warmhearted gesture that she had seen between many men and younger women or girls before. Ser Rodrik Cassel to his daughter Beth, Tyrion to Myrcella. It spoke of a relationship between two people that did not have a name to it, but was nonetheless present in its form of sincerity.

He could have lusted after her. She knew that he was a man, weak of flesh, and that as often as he had joked about having intimate relations with her, there was a small part of him that did desire her because she was a woman, but he had pressed her affiliation with the Hound on her more, driving her to come to accept what she stubbornly refused to. He wanted her to be truthful to herself more than anything. His duties went beyond those of a man sworn to protect her in exchange for his own life. He was almost like Tyrion in that regard and not for the first time, she was grateful in her decision to spare him.

She did not love this man as she loved Tyrion, as a dear friend and close confidant, but she did care for him as something else. An ally, certainly, but more than that. He was blood, a part of her self-chosen pack. In accepting his services, she had made him something more than he had been. And he cared for her beyond the requirements of his duty. He was fond of her, like Maester Luwin had been, as someone who would place her needs above his own out of an attachment formed by necessity.

And he was proud of her, for what she had accomplished with his instruction. He was proud to see her with bloodied hands, a result of her own kills to take control of her life and not have a man present to help her. His intentions had not been false when he asked for an equal partnership with the Hound in teaching her the art of the blade. His successful completion of her training proved that he had taken his vows most seriously, even if he blundered his way through the vows themselves.

The tender moment did not last, however, as he said, "Don't let that go to your head, girl. One victory among thousands."

Repositioning himself on the horse, Bronn told Sansa to guide him back to where she had left Ser Jorah. They were careful to not drive the horse back out into the path of any more rampaging elephants, but the Golden Company still ran about, ransacking empty homes before the fire could consume any wealth inside. With no other way forward but straight through the streets at top speed in the hopes that no one would try to unseat them, they set off at a gallop with Sansa directing Bronn with which direction to take.

They were coming into the canvas-covered bazaar when Bronn's grip on Sansa's joined hands at his waist loosened.

"Fucking hells. Take the reins," he commanded, working the fingers on her right hand into a firm hold. "You keep riding, you hear me, girl? Don't you dare stop for anything."

"What-?"

"Keep riding."

Bronn launched himself from the back of the horse, striking out at two armored men who had planted themselves in Sansa and Bronn's path, spears in hand to impale both of them. As he crashed against them, their spears clattered to the ground, opening the way for Sansa to ride through. Sansa tried to pull the horse up short but Bronn roared at her to continue on, smacking his joined fists into one man's face while wrapping the other's throat between his legs to perform a complicated stranglehold. She saw reinforcements coming to pull Bronn off of their fellow hired swords and he rushed them, letting out a battle cry as he met them head-on.

Swallowing a sob, Sansa let the horse continue on, for it knew where to run to avoid the fire and she soon found herself back in the untouched portion of the city. Calling up the image of the building where she had left Ser Jorah, she then took over for the horse and steered it back up the street she had run on foot to flee the mercenaries.

And she saw the Hound waiting for her, his ruddy face a mess of blood and fear. He screamed at her as he yanked her from the horse's back and she felt the softest tremble in his touch, fear of what had become of her. It wasn't a grand display of affection, but she found it endearing, that the Hound could face that which he feared most and still have his heart pound on her behalf. The fire could burn on, but he had feared losing her more than burning this night.

Only, the fire did burn, burned straight through her, kissing her neck and jaw, sizzling and imprinting on her flesh. She could not feel him on top of her trying to extinguish the flames, but she could hear him screaming again, this time in pain. A pain they now shared and that she felt digging deep, making a home for itself within her very being, replacing the comfort of a warm fire with fear of it. But he held her, cradled her, and asked for her strength at a time when she felt that she had none left to give. It was the most difficult feat she had undertaken since entering the city, but she surrendered the comfort of his caress in favor of the wolf's bravery.

When he had placed Arya atop the horse with her, she was once again claimed in selfishness, trying to make him see reason that Ser Jorah was past saving and that he would not begrudge the Hound the chance to save himself. Even before she asked—no—ordered that he come with her, she knew what his answer would be, as it ever was when he had set his mind to something else. She did not possess the power to pull him along with her, and if she attempted to stay with him, he would scoop her right back up and toss her onto the horse.

And Arya did not have the time for her to barter with him. She bled from the head and from what Sansa knew of head injuries, they were often far more serious than they let on. It was a heart-wrenching choice that had come at the most inopportune moment: her sister or the Hound. Arya had devoted herself to rescuing him from the beginning and the Hound had given almost the last of his strength as a tortured, wounded prisoner to go back for her. Neither would forgive her if she chose to save them over the other, but how could she choose? How could she make that choice that would claim one of them and spare the other?

Had Bran foreseen this decision? Had he seen her suffer in contemplation and then seen the futures that followed, one with Arya, one with the Hound? What had he seen? And why had he not told her, told Arya of what would await them?

Sansa clung to the Hound's arm, determined to hold on for however long it took to make him concede, to leave the knight who had saved her life and his. He looked at her then with a quiet reserve unlike anything she had seen on his face before. It spoke of words left unsaid but more importantly, of a promise unfulfilled.

_There is no future where if he lives, he doesn't come back to you._

He was alive, conscious, and still standing, whereas Arya was not. He might still be able to find his way out, and come back to her, but Arya only had this one chance.

Sansa settled on her decision, but the Hound chose for her at the exact same moment, slapping at the horse's hindquarters to get it moving and it took off at a sprint, ripping him away from Sansa's grip.

As before, the horse knew the way to safety, smelling the path unmarked by fire. As challenging as it was entering the city and making any headway of her destination once inside, it was disturbingly easy finding her way out with the horse to lead her. Once out in the open, she pulled hard on the reins to steer it back around to where civilians were still straggling toward the distant noise of the Northern army camp. She made no excuses for herself as she passed weary, burned, and wounded smallfolk, for Arya's need was greater than theirs at the moment.

Four Stark soldiers were tasked with searching all mounted refugees at a checkpoint just outside the camp and it was to them that Sansa rode. They bowed in respect to her, offering their assistance, but she waved their concern aside, motioning at Arya.

"I require immediate assistance for my sister. Is there a maester about?" she asked the men.

"Aye, m'lady, Maester Gershin—"

"Take my sister to him at once and tell him this is his only priority until I assign another to him. She was struck by falling rubble, there is a gash on her head—he will know what to do from there."

The soldiers bore Arya away and Sansa so desperately wanted to run alongside them to stand by Arya's side until she woke—if she woke, but she knew her sister would scold her for ignoring the needs of those still in peril. Arya had gone back for the Hound; she would not care for Sansa to not be doing the same. Only, Sansa did not have to look for him for long.

The bay brought him to her. She had been combing the beaches on horseback, for she knew that if the Hound had survived the fire, it would have been by fleeing by water, the closest exit. He would have to have swam around half the city to wash up on her beach so close to camp, but it was her only lead, and it rewarded her by showing him to her nearly two hours later as a waterlogged mess with his arm tied to a body she recognized as being Ser Jorah, still, unmoving, dead. She said a silent prayer for the knight and thanked him for her life, for Arya's, and for the Hound's, for only complete devotion to the Hound's survival could have made the latter so dedicated to carrying the knight's body such a great distance. Ser Jorah's last acts had been to reunite Sansa and the Hound and for that, Sansa would go to her grave still in his debt.

As Sansa let herself off of the destrier to cautiously move forward, the appearance of the last two magical beings revealed what she had suspected: they had come for the Hound and Ser Jorah as well. The Hound lay in the shallows with the waves crawling up to meet his legs before being pulled back out to sea in low tide. Perched protectively over him and Ser Jorah's body was the green dragon, watching Sansa to see if she meant to harm either of them. Ghost sat tentatively not far away, front paws dancing in anticipation of wanting to go to the Hound, but not wanting to invade the dragon's space.

"M'lady," said a voice, and Sansa almost dared not believe it when she saw Bronn staggering up to her and falling hard on his side. So intent on the Hound she had been that she had failed to see her sworn shield just feet away. She had taken him for dead, cut down by mercenaries or burned when he threw himself from the horse to allow her to carry on, and she had prepared to mourn for him later, yet here he was. He spat out a thick line of red from between his teeth and Sansa ran to him, turning him over onto his back to look for a mortal wound. He had been cut several times, but she was no maester and thus, did not posses the skill required to distinguish which ones were flesh wounds and which required immediate attention. The not-so-distant light of the burning city showed a gash across his face from just above his left eye, running straight down to his lower cheek. The cut had split his eyelid and the eye itself in two, leaving a gushing red mess.

"Go to your Hound, girl. He's in more need of help than I am," he said when Sansa tried to wipe some of the blood away to get a closer look at the base of the wound.

The Hound let out a perfectly timed cry as the dragon snorted on him and Sansa saw smoke rising from his chest. Even from here, Sansa smelled what she had been smelling on herself for the past three hours: burnt skin. She dared to move closer and could see that the terrible open wound that stretched across the Hound's skin was now cauterized. Any aid he needed now could only be delivered by a maester and he had a dragon perched over him and a direwolf waiting close by to run to him the second the dragon took flight. He was well taken care of at the moment.

Sansa took Bronn's arm. "Stand up."

"Piss off, girl, told you I'll be fuckin' fine," said the man in near delirium.

"Bronn of the Blackwater, you have given your life for mine many times since you came into my service, but you will let me assist you now. I release you from your vows and hold your oath fulfilled. I grant you your freedom _after_ I have seen to it that you are well cared for, now stand, damn you."

She threw his arm around her shoulders, securing her hand at his belt to help lift him. Now she could see just how heavy he was and that in their sparring, he had not been using his full weight against her.

"You're a magnificent woman, you know that?" he said cheekily.

"Hush, now."

She called for help as she bore half of his weight, nearly dragging him back to the borders of the camp set up just along the shoreline. Her pleas brought a small army down on her of both Unsullied and Dothraki, neither of which she was entirely pleased to see since there was a certain language barrier to overcome and no time in which to do so. Desperate, she asked if any of them spoke the common tongue and to her immense relief, one Unsullied in the lot of them did. She explained that Bronn was in need of immediate tending to and that she would need at least five of them to help carry the Hound who was in an even worse condition than Bronn.

"Please, ser," she said urgently. "We must be quick."

"What is 'ser'?" asked the one who understood.

Now was not the time to explain the hierarchy of the Seven Kingdoms to a former slave from across the Narrow Sea, but Sansa needed these men to understand the importance of saving the two men who had given everything for her. How could she explain to a eunich who had never known love and to blood riders that forcibly lay with their wives what the Hound and Ser Bronn meant to her, how determined she was to keep them?

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Black Leech."

"Black Leech," she repeated with a stab of sympathy on his behalf for having such a hideous name and knowing that it depicted him as vermin. "Please, help me save these men. They are most important to me."

"They are family?" asked Black Leech.

"Yes," she said without thinking, without faltering. _And they might just be the only family I have left._

Blinking at her through blank eyes, Black Leech elicited a quick order to his brethren, one of which conveyed the message to the Dothraki. "This one will be honored to help you."

Two Dothraki took Bronn by his arms and the back of his breeches and carried him with almost no visible effort back in the direction of the camp before Sansa could speak a final word to him, not that she intended that to be the last word she would say to him. He was still on his feet—somewhat—and that meant his wounds would not claim him. Not this night.

"Where is the other?" asked Black Leech.

Sansa led them back in the direction from whence she had come, surprised to find the dragon still curled around the Hound and Ser Jorah's body, its eyes glowing in the darkness as it saw her returning with members of its mother's army. Ghost still lay close by, but stood up in anticipation as Sansa came closer, eyes locked on the dragon. As little interaction as she had had with the beasts, she knew they had a profound understanding of a human's motives and that it would not let her close if it did not sense that she was worthy.

_I am_, she thought strongly, projecting her thoughts to the dragon, not that she believed it could hear her or understand her words. _If anyone is worthy of Sandor Clegane, I am. I claimed him. He's mine. Let me go to him._

The dragon's head came down between Sansa and the Hound, effectively blocking her from approaching. She could almost believe that it was contemplating her, judging her heart and her future as well as her past and her relationship with its mother. Those lidless eyes bore into her, ready to strike if she showed weakness. And she saw fleeting glimpses of what could be, if she allowed it to be…

Hot breath ruffled her hair, reminding her for the first time since delivering Arya to the Stark soldiers that she had been burned. The pain returned with a vengeance, but she did not raise a hand to the crisped flesh on her neck and face. This was the dragon's realm now, and if she showed it that she feared fire…

_No, I have twice been kissed by fire in birth and this night. I do not fear fire._

She let the dragon press its nose against her, inhaling every scent on her.

Behind the carriage-sized head, she heard gentle weeping and knew it to be her Hound.

_Let me go to him._

The way was clear, the dragon had retreated several large paces, now touching its nose to Ser Jorah's unresponsive body in what Sansa recognized as a gesture of farewell. Then, it spread its wings and made a short run across the sand to take flight, singing its songs of loneliness into the night.

Ghost beat her to the Hound, standing over him and licking at his face in concern. Sansa felt her knees go weak as she saw the vice-like grip the Hound still had on Ser Jorah, even now. _I'll see him out_, the Hound had said, and he had. He was well aware of Ser Jorah's condition when Sansa had left him. He knew there was no saving the knight, yet he had stayed behind to carry him out all the same, something that the Hound she knew would not have done. He did not care for Ser Jorah and had proven that in his ill treatment of the knight upon their leave of Winterfell.

Why would he have given his life to carry the body of a man he cared so little for out of a crumbling city? And more importantly, why was he now crying nearly silent tears apart from small spasms in his chest? Sansa lifted his head into her lap, asking him to acknowledge her, see her, and know that she was safe. Despite her relief from that fact, she still wept herself to see him so wounded in body and mind. He was burned flesh and blood and she had never seen him reduced to such a shattered form of his former self.

"Sandor."

"Don't burn him yet," said the Hound softly. "…has to…it has to…be me." He pulled Ser Jorah's arm to his chest, eyes unfocused and unable to settle on anything.

"We have him now and nothing will hurt him. You can let go," said Sansa, working her fingers into his palm to loosen his grip on Ser Jorah's wrist.

"…in the fire…_in_ the…Jorah…"

"The fire is gone, Sandor."

But he could not hear her. He did not see her, his gaze distant and troubled. Something behind those heavy brown eyes had broken and she could not be the one to repair him. The Hound she knew had gone into the city, but not all of him had come out.


	26. Chapter 26: Remains Amidst the Rubble

**SANSA**

The dead and wounded were constantly being shifted from tent to tent, making the process of locating any single person a task in and of itself. When Black Leech and his men had found a spare piece of ground inside one of the twenty tents set aside to accept casualties, they set the Hound down and the collection of field healers converged on him, asking Sansa about his injuries. Sansa pointed out the few she knew he had sustained: his chest, his burns, his broken nose, but when she made to take a seat beside him, she was shooed out of the tent for them to tend to him and left on the threshold with only Ghost for company.

They watched the Dothraki carry the body of their queen's dearest friend to her, asking her with only solemn expressions how Ser Jorah should be lain to rest. When last she had seen him, he had told her to run, given her the gift of life even as he lay dying. It could not have been more than three hours ago that she had seen him, heart still beating, eyes still open to watch and wait for the Hound's return. A true bear, a knight, a friend who had died to uphold his queen's command, to protect the Hound and Arya. He was the last of his house, and there was no way to honor him now but to commit his body to the afterlife.

He worshipped the old gods and his body would have been buried in the crypts of Bear Island, but the dead were no longer buried in the North after the coming of the Night King. And from what little she understood of the Hound's maddened ramblings, she knew that he was at least sane when he requested that Sansa wait to burn Ser Jorah's body, that it was the Hound's responsibility alone.

So they would wait.

She beckoned the Dothraki to follow behind her and led them across eleven tents before she came across one of only three maesters who had survived the sacking of King's Landing to offer his services to the survivors.

"Maester, this is the body of a knight who served my house and saved my life. I would see him properly preserved until I am able to transport him home. When given the opportunity, I would ask that you do what you can for him."

"Of course, my lady," said the maester wearily, "But I was given orders to tend to a young woman struck in the head by falling rubble. I believe she is the sister of Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell."

"_I _am Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell." A closer inspection of the bodies lined up and down the tent showed her Arya's unconscious form on the ground between a man with half of his foot gone and another nursing what appeared to be a completely smashed hand. "And I gave orders to see to my sister, a task I assigned to Maester Gershin."

"That is me, my lady. I have been tending to her since she was brought to me, but…" The maester reserved a look for her, one she had seen before when Tyrion came to their bedchambers with news she had already discovered on her own. Remorse, sympathy, self-hatred, pity—directed toward her. Taking her hands, Maester Gershin squeezed with surprising strength for a man who had such aged lines as he.

Sansa shrank away from him, but he was calm as he spoke. "Prepare yourself, my lady."

He did not need to say any more. Sansa backed out of the tent, away from the sight of her worst fear. She could not have that image as the last of her stubborn, fearless, selfless little sister. The walking wounded shuffled past, bearing those unable to stand on stretchers, bound for the now overflowing tents. No one knew her by sight, not a one cared, and there was no one to see her call for someone in the darkness to catch her and hold her back from yielding to the abyss of grief. They were all gone, every last one of them-

"Sansa?"

It was difficult to make out his form in the constant shifting shapes of soldiers and commoners moving about her, but she did, and this time, she would be the one bringing the news to him. She found herself on her knees before him, hands outstretched, needing him to be her strength when the maester's words had taken the last of it.

She had never let him touch her in this way, never taken more than a wedding kiss and a stroke of his hand, but she let him take hold of her now. He did not ask why she wept; he knew, somehow. The base of their relationship was that he could read her well before she could tell him what ailed her.

Foot traffic wove around them for a time as Sansa gripped him hard enough to leave marks. Then she felt the heavy head of the wolf settle in her lap, tilting upward to howl for the separated pack. The lost, the broken, the dead, scattered, never to be whole again. The wolf knew, knew that their family was all but nonexistent now and that the two of them might just be the last of their pack. So she wrapped her arms around his bloody fur, listening to his whines as Tyrion remained by their side acting as their guardian against the long night.

/ /

Sleep must have come, for she awoke in her tent with no memory of having gotten there. She sat up, calling for Bronn before remembering that he would not come. The events of the night before came hurtling back to her in the worst way, causing her to run for her chamber pot and vomit without reprieve for several agonizing minutes. She heaved hard enough to leave her in tears, massaging her stomach with every new wave.

This was how the maesters found her when they came to give their reports, not that their news gave her cause to feel any better or worse. Unless it was to deliver an outstanding miracle, none of their information was of any significance anymore. They only confirmed what she had already suspected and known and when she was not receptive to them, they bowed themselves out.

It might have been hours that she sat beside her chamber pot, not even noticing the smell of her own sick wafting back up into her nose. She cried quiet tears several times and did nothing to stop them or comfort herself. Such emptiness that she felt in the wake of the battle to end the war that she could not find any victory in it. What had she salvaged from this years-long war now? What was left for her at the end of the world when those she loved were beyond the point of saving? And how many of those loved ones remained?

Podrick Payne came to deliver her noon meal, dipping his head in a respectful show of grief on her part. "M'lady, your brother's returned to camp this morning. Minor injuries, but otherwise intact, he asked me to tell you that he will come to see you as soon as he is able, but there are many priorities to see to."

Sansa could not even gift the devoted squire with a nod, though she knew he would understand. He was used to going about his duties without acknowledgment.

Jon was alive. Hundreds of miles north, Bran was alive. And nothing else was certain except that Arya was gone by Sansa's doing. She had brought this upon her sister in every way, she alone held responsibility for House Stark losing another wolf to the winter.

_She would have gone back for him either way. She loved him and would have gone to find him even if you had not sent her._

She had loved him, something she did not admit to Sansa, but something Sansa knew to be true all the same. Her sister was harder to read after their years apart, but she remained predictable in one way: her love for family, which in the end, had been the Hound as well. She had loved him enough to brave the unknown and he would never know…

A rough, hot, wet tongue licked at the corner of her mouth, clearing it of the vomit she had not managed to wipe away. Without looking, she raised a hand to pet Ghost along the nose and lean her head against him. Taking her wash basin from her bedside table, she wrung the accompanying cloth almost dry and began to cleanse his fur of blood and grime, finding a stab wound on the back of his neck and wondering how in the world he had managed that. Had he seen battle as well? Had he gone into the city, perhaps in search of any of his pack, to protect them? If only direwolves had the gift of the common tongue, or any tongue to convey their thoughts.

Sansa continued to clean him well on into the afternoon and then only sat on the floor running her fingers through the now silky white fur as she saw the shadows outside the tent grown long and heavy.

She heard someone entering her tent, but had not the courtesy to rise and greet them. She didn't want visitors, not even Tyrion or Jon at this time, and she foolishly believed that if she ignored this one long enough, they would leave. But it was not to be, for Ghost, who had been a model patient up until now and thoroughly enjoyed the attention he was receiving, stood up with his red gaze focused at the tent flap as the both of them heard a dry cough. Sansa glanced up with lightness in her heart that would not be enough to pull her from her misery, but was enough to give her some small measure of hope.

Head wrapped in bandages across the remnants of his eye, arm secured to his chest to prevent it from being jostled about, Bronn limped the last few feet toward her and bent his neck in a stiff bow. "M'lady."

Sansa nearly tripped completely over Ghost as she stood up to close the distance between them and brought him in to a careful embrace to not disturb his wounds. She would liked to have held on for much longer than she should have been comfortable with, but even with her taking great care, he still gave a slightly pained groan and she had to desist.

"Forgive me," she said, drawing back. "Have I hurt you?"

"Everything hurts whether or not you're touching me, m'lady."

"And the extent of your injuries?"

Ghost circled Bronn, sniffing at his hindquarters and then lifting his head higher up to take in the scent of the knight's bandaged arm.

"And just where the fuck were you when I was gettin' meself hacked up?" asked Bronn with no real irritability toward the wolf. He spotted the wound Sansa had been in the process of stitching and regarded the wolf with reluctant respect. "Got that looking after what's yours, eh?"

Ghost made a low noise in his throat and then went to lay at Sansa's bedside.

"Is your eye the worst of it all?" asked Sansa, needing to know if he, too, was beyond her capability to save.

"Not the worst of it, but they'll all heal well enough, with time, so if you have any grand notions of getting yourself into a pile of smoldering shit, I won't be much help to you."

"You have no need to help me if those were my intentions. I released you from my service."

"Aye, you did. But I've nowhere else to go."

It was an innocent enough thing to say, but it wounded Sansa. Bronn had made a living, not an honest one, but a living nonetheless doing odd jobs for whoever had purse to pay him before he served the Lannisters. He had willingly left that position when it no longer favored him, but his role as Sansa's guard was the one he took to with the most pride and the most dedication yet. Without it, he had nothing.

"What are you asking, ser?"

"I know I'm no help at all like this, but I'll heal, like I always do. Once I do, I ask that m'lady keeps me on at least until you return to Winterfell."

"It would be my honor," said Sansa warmly. "I take you once again as my sworn shield, Ser Bronn and this time, gladly."

Again Bronn gave her the courtesy of a bow of the head, for it was all he could move without upsetting his bandages, but as he brought his head back up, he faltered. "Something's wrong," he said. "You've been crying."

To the point and tactless, as always, but Sansa could not deny it when he had seen her cry often enough to have an accurate guess as to why she was troubled.

"I suppose I have been," she admitted.

"Which one of them didn't make it?"

Sansa had no answer to give him, slumping down onto her bed and clutching the fur coverings as her next bout of tears made an appearance. She bit into her lip and cast her eyes down, wishing for the nurturing embrace of her mother, the sturdy hold of her father, and having nothing. As Jon drowned his grief in his duties to the armies and the people, Sansa was left alone to deal with it in silence.

The bed sank an inch or two with Bronn's additional weight and then his good arm enveloped her, tempting her toward him and though she had a mind to push him away, she gave in, needing someone in this moment. The people whose touch she craved most were not in a position to give it, and as the man who had given so much for her, Bronn was doing what was in his power to do for her. She could sense that this sort of physical contact was not the type he was used to, but he was attempting it on her behalf, and she appreciated it more than she could put to words.

She let her sobs wrack her body and work through her, hugging herself to Bronn's side. The sorrow would run its course and leave, returning when she least expected it, but for now, she had someone to ease her through it and considering the circumstances, it was the very best she could hope for. When her eyes would no longer expel any more tears and her sobs had dissolved into nothing but hitched breathing, Bronn pulled a section of the bedding toward her for her to wipe at her face.

Before she could accept the bedspread as her makeshift handkerchief, Bronn stopped her and touched the bandages along her neck and jaw that had come undone, worked loose by the tears trickling down her face. He moved them aside to see her burns clearly.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

"After I went back for them," answered Sansa. "The wildfire burst and took to me like a spark to thirsty grass. It would have kept burning but Sandor…" She stopped, remembering how the Hound had thrown himself upon her, confronting that which he feared most—for her. And she could not thank him for it because he would not hear her, not anymore.

"_He will live, but where his mind has gone, I cannot say. Thus far, he has been unresponsive,_" the maester had told her that morning. He had said that the Hound would not be the same, that he had been mentally damaged enough to alter his personality, but whether or not those changes would be severe remained yet to be seen.

Which one of them had she lost, Bronn wanted to know? Both of them.

Presently, one of the maester's assistants begged entry to her tent and Bronn stood quickly, remembering his place now that he had reentered her service.

"M'lady, Maester Vennon bids you see him in his tent."

"Lady Stark's preoccupied at the moment, boy," said Bronn.

"What need does the maester have of me?" asked Sansa, nudging Bronn aside for her to see the young man better. Maester Vennon was the one to deliver the news of the Hound and if he wished to speak to her now, there might have been further development in the Hound's condition. She dared not hope, but she could imagine…

"He said he requires your assistance, that was all, m'lady," said the envoy, and Sansa agreed to follow with Bronn in accompaniment.

Her tent had been reconstructed near the center of the vast camp and the three maesters had humble quarters set up near the tents for the wounded and sickly to access them as often as needed, so Sansa had to walk nearly the length of the encampment to find the correct man. Maester Vennon was perhaps the youngest of the three, but his blackened hair was streaked with silver in places that aged him more than his facial wrinkles did. He was waiting for Sansa without his tent which had an adjoining compartment added where four Stark guards stood watch.

"My lady," said the maester as Sansa approached. "Apologies for disturbing you at this late hour, but I thought it best to inform you of Sandor Clegane's condition as it changes."

"What's happened?" asked Sansa, fearing he had taken a turn for the worse.

"I was able to treat the wound to his chest while he remained unconscious, though the cauterization done by the dragon was an ingenious bit of healing I had not thought possible from such a beast. It may well have saved his life. But he awoke all too soon and has not allowed me to touch him any further. His broken nose, burns, and various other injuries must be seen to, but he flew at me in a state of maddened panic when I attempted to tend to him. He is not receptive to anything I say and for the sake of sparing him further harm, I stationed a watch to ensure he does not try to leave the tent. It is important to see to his wounds, though he smells something awful, especially after swimming in the Blackwater."

"Have you drawn a bath for him?" Sansa inquired.

"I have, but as I have said, my lady, he will not allow me or anyone else to see him to it."

"I will bathe him. Give me milk of the poppy and I will ensure that he drinks it after he is cleaned. Then he will be docile enough for you to do what needs be done."

"I would not recommend it, my lady, he might harm you if you try to touch him."

"He would not. I will bathe him. I will go in alone and only my shield Ser Bronn may enter until I have finished."

"As you wish, my lady."

The maester ducked inside his tent to sort through his kit for milk of the poppy, giving Bronn a chance to pull Sansa aside and ask in a guarded undertone, "If the big man's mind has gone, it won't matter that he knows you. If he comes at you, I'll raise a lump on his head or worse if he gives me reason, don't think I won't."

"He won't harm me, but once I give you leave, you may come in as well. Wait until I have calmed him."

Maester Vennon brought her a finger-sized phial of milky-white contents and Sansa invited herself into the adjoining partition, steeling herself for what she was about to see. Apart from being awake, the Hound looked no different than when she had last seen him the night prior. He sat on a stool far too small for him, body stooped forward over his knees with his hands curled into fists in his lap. It appeared that someone had attempted to cover his naked torso with a blanket, but he had thrown it off when he struck out at the maester and not seen fit to replace it. He was watching a beetle crawl up his boot but made no indication that he heard Sansa enter.

"Sandor."

He did smell. He smelled of blood, feces, stagnant water, festering flesh, smoke, and bodily odors, but she approached him all the same, lowering herself to his eye level and with the gentlest pressure under his chin, tilted his face up to look at her. His eyes saw past her, looking through her, not at her. Still tawny brown, still hooded, but now empty.

"Sandor, the maester has to be able to treat you, but not in your current condition. You must cleanse yourself. Do you understand?"

By the vacant expression on his face, he _didn't_ understand, not in the least, but Sansa didn't need his permission. She laid her hands upon his wrists which had blistering sores from his months in captivity and waited for a reaction from him, but he had none. She leaned back to beckon him to stand, but he only did so because she put the entirety of her strength into pulling him to his feet.

"I am going to help you undress," she told him to no response. "Ser Bronn, you may enter now."

Bronn took his time, deliberating his every move while watching the Hound, but the latter never even acknowledged that someone else had entered his tent, and so Bronn was able to come to the Hound's other side without a reaction. Without being prompted to, he set the Hound's hand on his back to help steady him as he reached down to start pulling off one boot. At the same time, Sansa set herself to the daunting task of undressing him from the waist down but Bronn would not allow her to do so, insisting that she turn away, though Sansa was reluctant to let something as trifle as nudity stand between her and the first proper wash the Hound had had in months.

"Trust me, m'lady, you'll not want to see what might've been done to 'im—below."

The possibility that Cersei had had him gelded among other things had never occurred to Sansa, but now that Bronn had pointed it out, she was suddenly quite loathe to know.

"Turn 'round for a moment," Bronn suggested, and she was ashamed that she did so, unable to bear the thought that the Hound might even now be a man of the same type as Lord Varys and the Unsullied. Not that he would have need of anything below the belt in his current state.

When she heard the sound of two large feet stepping into the bathwater, she gave herself an additional ten seconds and then turned back to find that Bronn had coaxed the Hound into the tub and made him sit, but with the Hound's size, nearly all of his upper body stuck out of the water and his knees came well above the surface as well. He obviously did not fit comfortably in the tub, but he had nothing to say on the matter as he sat watching the ripples made by his own body.

Taking lye soap and a cloth that had been set aside in the case that the Hound allowed the maester to wash him, Sansa dipped the cloth in the warm bathwater and then ran it gently over his shoulder to test his reaction but as with everything she had tested thus far, he did not even acknowledge what was being done to him. She began to scrub at his arms, washing the filth of countless days away from him. Underneath the grime she found an assortment of marks, some insignificant, but altogether making for a heavily scarred body. When she moved around to his back, she was pulled up short at the sight of angry hash marks still in the process of healing, infested with infection that would take skilled hands to clear.

She knew he had been whipped, but this messy rearrangement of his flesh almost made her retch. If he had been scarred before when Sansa had stumbled upon him bathing in the godswood, it was nothing to what Cersei had done to him now. Not for the first time, she wished the worst sort of punishment on the woman for her cruelty, but if she had survived , Sansa had no hope of ever finding her to make her atone for this monstrous act. There would be no retribution for the Hound.

Taking care to avoid the festering flesh, Sansa ran the cloth along the back of his neck, but the droplets trickled down to mingle with his wounds and he surged forward in body with nothing but blankness on his face. He reacted to pain, but his face did not tell of how much he could bear to withstand, and so she would have to be extraordinarily cautious in how she set about to cleaning him.

"Lean forward," she instructed him, but he did nothing. She would have preferred for him to flinch away from her touch. At least then she would know that he recognized it—for he had always been reluctant to be touched—and from there, she could rebuild him, break through to the man she knew. This…this was nothing. He was nothing, and as she gently tilted his head toward the basin, she held back her tears.

"I can take over from here, m'lady," offered Bronn, taking the cloth from her with a pained empathetic expression. "Go on now, I'll clean him proper."

"No, I can do it," Sansa insisted.

"Aye, but you don't _have _to."

"Yes, I do. I'm the only one who can, the only one who cares. He gave everything for my family, for my sister and me, but now no one cares what he's become. No one will want to look after him, so I am all he has."

"Not quite, m'lady. For as long as he has you, he's got me as well. As m'lady's dedicated knight, my duty is to you and those you call family, and that's him now, isn't it?"

Sansa nodded, though in defeat. "It is."

"You won't be undertaking this burden alone, then," Bronn assured her.

"You owe him nothing. This is not your responsibility."

"I think I can decide that for meself."

Weary but thankful, Sansa allowed Bronn to finish gently scrubbing the Hound while she excused herself to ask the maester for a change of clothes for him. When she returned, Bronn had finished submerging the Hound's head in the basin and cleaned the rest of the blood from his face, though he left the additional burns on his face and chest untouched. Like Sansa's own burns, the Hound's still glistened pink, though they seemed to be minor injuries compared to his chest and the mangled muddle that was his back.

Only when Bronn told her to turn from the sight once again did she realize she did not ask if the Hound had been mutilated. She waited to pose the question until Bronn had the Hound fitted into a new, if somewhat loose pair of breeches that normally would have fit the bigger man, but were in danger of falling with the loss of weight from his term of imprisonment.

"Does he bear injuries below, ser?" she asked, not ready for the answer one way or another.

"He's still got his prick, if that's what you're curious about," said Bronn with none of his former care to be discreet.

It was not relief Sansa felt at the news, but it was the more favorable answer. One less injury to tend to, one less task to have to assist him with.

Sansa unraveled the new tunic, faded grey and certainly worn by other men before, but the only one large enough to accommodate the Hound's broad shoulders. She reached up to slip it over his head and then assisted him in fitting his arms through the sleeves. It was heart-breaking, having to do everything for him like a child only a few years out of infancy. This man—whose overpowering presence and ability to do what other men could not—was utterly helpless now.

While she yet had the courage to do so, she stood on tiptoe to access his mouth, uncorking the vial of milk of the poppy and tipping it in. She tilted his head back to see to it that he swallowed properly, but her invasion of this particular intimate area was a mistake.

His hand closed around her forearm, instantly squeezing hard enough to sprout blossoms of black and blue beneath his grip. She could not hold back the startled cry of pain that escaped her throat and the sound brought confusion to the Hound's face. He was watching her now, looking directly _at _her with incomprehensible fear as if he were trying to pull a memory of her to the forefront of his mind but couldn't, and so he considered her an enemy. His hold on her hurt, but his expression wounded her more. Her Hound was lost and could not find the truth in anything. Though she doubted he could truly see her, she knew he was asking her for help to bring back his mind from the troubled depths whence it had gone.

There was no recognition to be seen on his face, but the look, the horrible _look _he gave her as if he feared that she might hurt him drove the last of her inner valor from her and the tears she had not yet shed for him finally fell.

Bronn's only accessible hand went for his dirk.

"No, don't hurt him," said Sansa quickly, hastening to wipe her weakness from her face.

"He's got two seconds to get his hand off've you or he loses it."

"He's not aware of his actions—"

"Aye, and that means he doesn't know how much he's hurting you. He's dangerous, m'lady."

_Not to me._

She tried to wriggle her finger's underneath the Hound's to remove them from her arm, but at her touch, he yanked her closer and drew her in to him with his other hand grasping the back of her head to anchor her in place. It would be but the work of an instant and he could crush her, snap her neck, or bash her skull in—and he would never know what he had done.

"No," Sansa told Bronn as she watched the knight take another step toward the Hound. "He won't hurt me."

"He _is_ hurting you. Don't be stupid about this, girl. I told you what I'd do if he came at you."

"_No_," said Sansa firmly. "Stay your hand."

Straining upward, Sansa let her free hand wander up to his neck, still damp from the bath, but already collecting sweat. "You know me," she told the Hound. "You remember me." She would not ask him, but rather demand that he recall her. She needed him to remember that he wanted her, desired her, loved her. She knew he did, and she could not bear to have lost him before she heard him admit it. Nothing could make him forget what she meant to him. "You know who I am and you know that I won't hurt you, Sandor. I would never hurt you."

His fingers were now digging into the back of her skull and around her arm, tightening in uncertainty, preparing to do what was necessary to protect himself during this moment of awareness.

_"No, little bird, I won't hurt you." _A promise made years ago, a vow he had held himself to, something he would never forget.

She needed to hear him say it again, she needed to _hear _him. She wanted so desperately to see his memories return to him, see the light in his eyes when he realized he was with her, but behind those frantic eyes was—nothing. Her Hound was truly gone and she was the greater fool for believing otherwise.

"Please, Sandor," she wept, ashamed to beg him when she knew it would not bring him back to her.

"Sansa," warned Bronn.

If he would truly never return to her, if it was a certainty that he was lost forever, she would rather he break her open here and now and not leave her to suffer his silence alone. It had all been for him; she had promised to never give everything for one man when her people deserved better of her, but she had already sacrificed it all for him when she allowed him to leave in the company of Arya and Ser Jorah. If she had not spoken her concerns to Daenerys on the eve of his departure, if she had set her mind to what was best for the North, none of it would have come to be. But she had given everything for him long before she was even aware of doing so.

_If you had not said a word to Daenerys, she would not have sent Ser Jorah and the Hound would have faced his execution alone. Ser Jorah saved his life_, she reminded herself.

_But this is not living. He is not living, not anymore._

The man who she had found in the burning city was the last she would see of Sandor Clegane. His will to live had kept him sane, but with the losses he suffered, the shattered remains of the man who she found on the beach, hand still grasping Ser Jorah, breast smoking from the dragon breath that had sealed the worst of his wound—he had finally given in.

Letting her hand fall from his neck, Sansa rested it on the wrist of the hand clenched in her hair. Her eyes fell closed as she tried to remember how he had so gently touched her in her bedchamber, attempting to disregard the sensations left by Ramsay Bolton and replace them with a tender caress. She knew then that he more than wanted her, felt something deeper for her. That was the lasting memory she would have of her Hound.

_If he will not return to me, let him end me now while I can yet remember him as he was._

She felt the rough padding of his thumb brush across her jaw and wrenched open her eyes to catch the expression on his face.

Faraway, wandering, unresponsive—but for half of a moment in which the hardened lines around his eyes softened. It was a plea for her to hear him when he had no words to give her.

_I'm still here._

The look was gone in an instant, but Sansa knew what she had seen. His grip on her loosened as he returned to that place where she almost could not reach him. Almost. It had released him just long enough to send her a message that she alone could interpret.

_I'm still here._

"Yes, you are," she whispered, closing her hands around his and pressing her lips to his crackled knuckles.

/ /

Five days past the burning of King's Landing and most of the fires had finally gone out, though the smoke hovering over the ruins clouded the sky, giving the appearance of early sunset when it was yet midday. Makeshift shelters had been built to house the half a million people now homelessly strewn about the woods just outside the capital. Half a million mouths to feed not including those of their own armies. Half a million orphaned children whose parent had sacrificed them.

The council convened to decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms. Seven individuals from seven walks of life. Sansa, Jon, Tyrion, Lord Varys, Ser Davos, Grey Worm, and Missandei. There was dead silence as they gathered at the war council table, seated and solemn as they waited for Jon to make the report after his tenth journey back into the city to see what was salvageable.

"It would take a thousand men a hundred years to rebuild what Cersei tore down in a matter of hours," said Jon. "Every building is smoldering rubble. The keep is as barren as Harrenhal now. It will take the effort of every able-bodied man to make the place inhabitable again, but it can be done. There is nowhere large enough to house these people but King's Landing and we alone have the power to set that act in motion."

"Yes," said Missandei before anyone else could speak. "Queen Daenerys would not have hesitated in providing shelter for these people, even if they did not want her. It was in her heart to help those incapable of helping themselves. Even if she had to wait those hundred years to finally sit the throne that was hers, she would have put the people first. In light of her death, it's what we must do to honor her name."

"The Unsullied will help," assured Grey Worm. "We will build every last brick to honor our queen."

"And what of Cersei?" asked Bronn, the only member not of the council allowed to be present at Sansa's request. "What if we rebuilt the city only to find out that she's found some other gods-forsaken army to help her take it back?"

"She has no means to take it back," said Missandei. "She is not like Daenerys Targaryen who built her armies with kindness and justice. Cersei has no love for people and in turn, they will have no love for her. She has no means to pay for more sellswords to assist her and the Golden Company was put to the sword when our forces took the city. Even if Cersei did survive, she will never take back what belongs to our queen."

"There's no cause to worry about Cersei Lannister any longer," said Jon gravely. "We found the bodies of her and her brother during our last sweep of the city. Ser Jaime was charged with assisting my sister in freeing Sandor Clegane and Ser Jorah, but it would appear that he abandoned his duties for a greater cause. They were discovered in a cellar, their bodies intact. The maesters conclude that Ser Jaime died of smoke inhalation, but they found his knife bloodied and Cersei stabbed through the heart."

Similarly to the other members of the council, Sansa did not know how to take this unexpected news. When she had not seen Ser Jaime in the company of Arya, the Hound, and Ser Jorah, she had assumed the worst of him, taking his abandonment of her sister as the final slight against her. He had left Arya to lead the men out alone, but had combed the city to find his sister and do the very thing he promised Sansa he would never be able to do. And instead of fleeing the city with her body and his life, he had chosen to die with her.

"The burned remains of several armored individuals as well as the armor bearing the kraken and the Hand's pin found in the streets outside suggest that her Queensguard, Euron Greyjoy, and Cersei's former maester died nearby, though how is anyone's guess."

"An accurate guess would be to assume that either my brother ordered them to stand guard outside or killed them first before he took Cersei below to finish it," mused Tyrion, his lip quivering with the news. "But then again, my brother could not have killed the Queensguard and Euron Greyjoy single-handedly. He must have had assistance."

"He did," said Sansa, heart aching for her friend, for he had just lost both of his siblings, the one who hated him and the one who had loved him, the only one who had loved him. The last of the Lannisters, and now bitterly alone in the world. "Ser Jaime did have help. It would make sense that Sandor Clegane, Ser Jorah, and my sister were there to level the playing field. Both Sandor and Ser Jorah were gravely wounded when I found them and though neither told me how they came to sustain their wounds, it would serve to prove that they had been in battle recently upon their escape. Sandor bears a cut from shoulder to hip, made by a thick blade that should have cloven him in half. Ser Jorah was stabbed completely through and the wound left behind was sizable enough to be delivered by the same giant blade. It was likely that Ser Jaime and the rest battled their way through to Cersei and while he saw to Cersei, his way was cleared by the others."

"A rather grand assumption," observed Lord Varys.

"Not at all, my lord. It was by pure happenstance that they stumbled across each others' paths, but you can be assured that the fight that ensued was where Ser Jorah took his mortal wound and where Sandor fulfilled his promise to end his brother."

"We didn't find Ser Gregor's body," Jon pointed out.

Not to be deterred by this lack of evidence, Sansa continued. "Sandor bears heavy bruising along his throat, the result of being nearly throttled by large hands. Ser Jorah's body has the same marks. Both Sandor and Ser Jorah were wounded by a blade far too large for any member of the Queensguard or Euron Greyjoy to wield. While it is not proof enough that this was for true what transpired, it is a fair guess and would explain the wounds on both men's bodies."

"How fares Sandor Clegane?" asked Lord Varys and to anyone else, he would have sounded genuine in his concern, but Sansa could not see why he would care one way or another what happened to the Hound since the latter was not important to the betterment of the realm.

"The maester says he suffered greatly enough to shatter his perception of reality," said Tyrion, answering for Sansa as he so often did when she did not have the words. "As to whether or not he will return to the man he was before remains to be seen. Perhaps with time, time to heal and to remember. By the account of Lady Sansa, he was last heard mumbling about Ser Jorah and his insistence that the knight not be burned by anyone's hand but Clegane's. It would seem that the two of them shared a particular bond while imprisoned."

"But what occurred between them to push Sandor Clegane to accept any man as his friend is something we may never know, for all witnesses are dead apart from Sandor whose mind is unable to recall such events."

"Forgive me my lords, my ladies, but is the business of why Sandor Clegane and Jorah Mormont became friends prudent at this particular time?" said Ser Davos, clearly feeling out of place saying such a thing.

"You don't think it's important to know why Ser Jorah is dead?" questioned Sansa, suddenly feeling a simmering anger deep within her that not a one of these people cared for the dead after the fact unless it was the queen. "The chain of events that brought us here began with Daenerys Targaryen sending Ser Jorah with Sandor Clegane as a favor to me. Following her death, Ser Jorah took it upon himself to protect Sandor to carry out the queen's last orders to him. My sister freed the both of them from their cells and attempted to escort them out of the city. As a result, both my sister and Ser Jorah lost their lives and Sandor was taken beyond the brink of insanity, succumbing to the torture he had been put through. And he battled Ser Gregor, Euron Greyjoy, and the Queensguard, opening the way to Cersei for Ser Jaime."

"We don't know that," Jon pointed out.

"Until Sandor can tell us otherwise, that is the best we can conclude," said Sansa adamantly. She noted how none of them cared to correct her to _if_ the Hound could eventually tell them otherwise, averting their eyes to not give her false hope that they believed for a second the Hound's mind could be healed.

"Regardless of whether or not Sandor Clegane's memories return to him, it is a solid fact that Cersei Lannister is dead, as our queen wished," said Lord Varys, for once not pursuing what Sansa would rather not talk about. "The Red Keep and the city lay in ruins, its people scattered for miles in all directions, homeless, hungry, and ready for anyone to take them in. We have no one with claim to the throne when it is more important now more than ever that the decisions of a ruler help to mend what Cersei has done. However, given the lack of candidates, I believe it would be to the benefit of the realm if we come to a conclusion here and now at this table. My lords, my ladies, I propose that until such a time as we may elect a new Protector of the Realm, we—the seven of us—see to the needs of the people as one united front."

"You are suggesting that this council made up of a bastard, a dwarf, two eunuchs, a queen's handmaiden, an onion knight, and the Lady of Winterfell work cohesively to build King's Landing anew?" asked Tyrion without amusement. "That's a generous stretch, even for you."

"Unless you have a more favorable suggestion, my lord?"

"I do not, but I hardly think _we _are fit as a combined group to do what Daenerys was able to accomplish alone."

"Her Grace did not do it alone," said Missandei. "We were her council, we offered her advice and she chose how to take it, but she would not have taken the glory of paid-off decisions for herself. She admitted her need for us all several times in confidence to me and she would have given her full support for what we are about to do now. We will do her justice."

"We will," assured Jon. "We're all the people have now and we'll make this world in her vision."

Now the time had come for Sansa to speak and reveal the idea she had entertained since Daenerys's death. Had the queen lived, it might have come into being with the growing friendship between her and Sansa, but this was something Sansa would never know. She was not one to take advantage of the situation in light of another's death, but after the devastating losses she had suffered as a pawn in the battle for the Seven Kingdoms, she alone had the power to speak for her people. This was a decision years in the making, one that should have happened long ago.

"I have faith that the council will see a bleeding realm restored and see peace finally brought to its people, but I will not stay to witness it, nor will I be a part of this council. The North is in need of as much repair as the rest of the kingdoms and as the last Stark who can take claim to the role of Warden of the North to assist with that restoration, I must go home. I will see that affairs here are in order and then take my leave by week's end, and I will be taking Sandor Clegane and Ser Bronn with me."

She anticipated the looks of polite surprise as well as a few of suspicion, but she did not expect to be met with argument over the Hound and Bronn of all things, and from Jon no less.

"The Hound should remain in the maester's care, perhaps sent to the Citadel where there is more accessible knowledge to overcome his ailment," said Jon. "As for Ser Bronn, he defied orders. He let you walk right into a burning, war-torn city in the middle of battle."

"And I gave the order that allowed him to do that. You forget that I assigned him to me, he is _my _sworn shield and as such, my orders are priority over those not given—by you."

"He allowed you to come to harm."

"I didn't _allow _it," snapped Bronn indignantly from behind Sansa. "Did my damndest to prevent it and lost an eye over it."

"He was charged with my survival, not my well-being," defended Sansa. "He swore to protect me, and he has. He let himself come to harm to give me a chance at escape. And I yet live, so in the eyes of gods and men, he did not forsake his vows. He remains loyal to me."

"I understood that Lady Sansa released you from your position, Ser Bronn?" posed Lord Varys.

"She did, for half a day," said Bronn.

"I did, but he asked to return to my service, and I gladly accepted him back, which shows how he, too, has changed through this war. Would any man or woman here believe that he had a selfless bone in his body before he came to serve me? I would not have believed it myself, but he chose to come to me, asking for a pardon. He chose to come back to me even after he had been given his freedom and I am obliged to accept loyal men when I so rarely stumble across them, which is why I will take both Ser Bronn and Sandor Clegane with me when I depart."

"My lady, that may not be in the best interest of Sandor Clegane," began Lord Varys, but Sansa had entered into this debate with the Spider before and had won. She alone knew what was best for the Hound and she would not hear someone else claim to know better.

"I fought for them. I burned for them. I claimed both of them before Cersei and all of you were there to witness it. They are mine and I will take them both and then the three of us will be going home."

"Lady Sansa—"

Here Sansa stood up, preparing to deliver the demands she had been practicing since her discovery that the council was to convene. "You will find that I am a lady no longer, Lord Varys. I wish you and the other council members well in your ruling of the Six Kingdoms and if you should require assistance, your friends to the North will always be happy to lend aid, but we will not come at your beck and call. We answer to no ruler other than the one born in the North, of the North. From this day until the end of days, the North will exist as an independent kingdom, never again to fall under another's rule. As of this moment, the North departs the realm."

She stared each of them down, daring them to contradict her, but who was to stop her? There was no king, no queen, no dictator. Jon would never reveal his true lineage, and so it had been the consensus to make decisions in the council until a more suitable option came along. None of them could deny that the North deserved its liberation after all it contributed to the would-be reign of Daenerys Targaryen.

"And will this new kingdom be yours?" asked Tyrion, biting back a wry smile that told her he approved of her bold move.

"That is for the people to decide."

"You would leave the election of the king or queen in the North up to the decision of the people?" asked Ser Davos. "Forgive me for speaking so boldly, my lady, but that's quite the risky move, isn't it?"

"Not at all," said Tyrion. "She will give the people the option of choosing their leader and they will choose her. She knows it will be her, but she is giving the power to the people to earn their trust as a leader who considers their opinions. True, the Starks and the Lannisters began this war, but the Starks brought it to an end, and the people will remember that. I may be premature in my delivery, but I offer my congratulations and my respects to Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North, long may she reign."

Even now unmarried and in no way responsible for defending her, Tyrion was still the man who could see greatness in her when no one else would. They believed her broken from her losses, but her clever lion had presented her in a favorable light and if his experienced tongue could not convince them, no one's could.

"Long may she reign," said Bronn, not that his vote counted, but his faith in her was not wasted on the council.

"Long may she reign," echoed Jon, and with his support, any lingering dispute was put to rest. The North would be Sansa's to rebuild for her mother and father, for Rickon, for Arya. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and she would see to it that there were Starks to carry on the reign of the wolf.

She was wished well by Ser Davos and given nods of approval from Grey Worm and Missandei, but only after they had concluded their business did the others individually approach her to bid their final farewells.

"While you yet do not wear the crown, forgive me if I still refer to you as my lady," said Lord Varys, bowing regardless. "And I do hope you will forgive me for my interference in your relationship with Sandor Clegane. It is human to err, as I have learned well in my years of service to the many rulers that have sat the Iron Throne, though I was pleasantly surprised when proven wrong about both of you. I had wished only for you to remember your duty to your people to ensure the North's survival after the devastating Great Battle, but you have taken those matters into your own hands. Despite your losses, you remain dedicated to your people, both those of your realm and of your house, with some exceptions."

"Sandor Clegane and Ser Bronn belong to House Stark now, so yes, they are a part of my realm. Let House Clegane be removed as vassals to House Lannister and be born anew as bannermen to House Stark. As for Ser Bronn, he has sworn fealty to me, and I reward those who have served me well. He will be given his own house in the North if he so desires."

"You and Daenerys Targaryen are more alike than you know, my lady. Both of you harbor a soft spot for the broken and the battered, the unwanted, so to speak. It is these qualities that make you a Stark, but more than that, I think. I wish you the very best of luck and happiness."

It was rare for the Spider to concede without a fight or to admit his wrongdoings, but he had done both, which left Sansa uncertain of him, as always. But she posed no threat to the Six Kingdoms, remaining a faithful ally, and so he had no cause to disapprove of her new position, but he would be the one to watch out for. She only hoped she would have someone as knowledgeable on her own small council.

Tyrion escorted her outside, bidding that they walk to the camp's borders to watch the waves on the beach below. She could sense that he was saddened by her decision to leave, even if he did support the future she had made for herself, but he had a flair for the dramatic and did not disappoint in heaving a magnificent sigh as they watched seagulls drop into the waters and emerge with fish in their beaks.

"I wish you would stay," he told her sincerely.

"And I wish you would come North with me, but we have our places to be and mine is not here, not after what I endured and what I lost."

Tyrion took her hands, placing a tender kiss upon them as he looked up to her. "My lady, my dear friend you may tire of hearing me say it but I wish you happiness, as I always have. I wish for him to come back to you, but even if he does not, promise me that you will write to me. I have friends here, but none that I care for as much as you. I could not bear it if we never spoke again."

"If Sandor Clegane is truly lost, I have but two friends left in this world. I would not cut myself off from either of them. I will write you, but you must come see me when your duties permit you to. You always have a home in Winterfell."

"And you always have a home with me, Sansa."

"Here we are, the last of our houses, bringing the war to an end after our families began it. Let history remember our friendship and every bit of it, down to the last detail of a marriage destined to fail but a friendship destined to be," said Sansa, squeezing his hands in return.

"I do love you, dear one, remember that. Let history remember that," Tyrion promised.

"As do I."

"Might as well kiss 'im already," said Bronn and for once, Sansa had forgotten that he was there; he had become quite skilled in holding his silence during his time served as her man, but had not completely perfected the craft.

"_You _kiss him," invited Sansa, and both Bronn and Tyrion shared in the laughter that followed.

Back in camp, she found Jon at her tent with a parcel wrapped in cloth in his hands. Before she could ask, he held it out to her, and by the feel of it, the slender hold of one end and the sharp edge of the other, she knew what it was before she unwrapped it. The Valyrian steel dagger that she had given to Ser Jorah, a thing she thought lost in the flames.

"We recovered that two days past, but I was waiting to give it back to you," said Jon. "How did you lose it?"

Sansa told him, but he didn't seem surprised, smiling with some strain as she recounted the tale. "Its last act was to defend you, its last wielder the man whose father gave me my own sword." He patted Longclaw's pommel fondly.

"It started the war, by some accounts. I don't want it."

"It's not for you. It's for Arya—and Ser Jorah, I suppose. When you take them home, when you burn them, let this be placed on their pyre. It was the weapon that saved both you and the Hound and it deserves a proper burial, as does its masters."

"You still don't approve of me taking him home with me, do you?"

"And since when have you ever cared whether or not I approve? I didn't, not for a long time, but I know what he did for you and Arya. I know he cared for her, and I know he cared for you while he was still whole. I owe him a debt that I would have seen paid in having the maesters of the Citadel treat him, but if you want him, then he will go with you and don't let me decide that for you."

"Will you come home, once construction of the new city is underway?"

Jon pulled her into an embrace, as strong and warm as the first they had ever shared when she saw him at Castle Black. "Not for a long, long time. Daenerys had a vision for her kingdom and she shared it with me, so I have to see that vision fulfilled, however long it takes. I owe it to her for trusting me when no one else would. So I'll stay, but this isn't a permanent farewell. I will come see you, I promise."

"You're a Stark," said Sansa, outer corners of her eyes burning with the effort to not weep again. "And the Starks belong in the North."

"But I'm also a Targaryen, and Targaryens belong where the need of the people is greatest."

Just then, Ghost came to sit by Jon's side, whining in the same way he had done when the Hound, Arya, and Ser Jorah prepared to take their leave of Winterfell. Jon scratched Ghost behind his one ear and then knelt to put his arms around the wolf's neck.

"Take him home. I trust you'll protect him."

"He's your wolf, Jon. He belongs with you."

"He belongs with the pack, and that's not just me anymore. I know he's mine, and he always will be, but he chose his pack, and he'll want to go with them. It's you and me, it's Bran, it was Arya and Sam, Tormund and Ser Jorah, I might even say Ser Bronn after the events of the war council tent attack—and it's the Hound. I've gone looking for him every night since the burning of the city and every time, I've found him standing watch over the Hound. Let him go with those he wants."

Jon hugged her again, but held on this time as he said in her ear, "I hope he comes back to you." Sansa drew back to see if he truly meant those words. "He's given you something I never could have hoped for, and that's healing. I didn't think you'd ever be able to love someone after everything and everyone who's hurt you, but you love him, and I should never have said those things I did simply because of that. For you to love someone, that's what father would have wanted for you. You have no reason to love anyone in that way, but you do, and that's what I want for you."

"I'll bring him back, some way or another, I _will_ find a way. Daenerys gave me that chance and I will always be grateful to her. She was a magnificent woman, one taken too soon, but I believe she died in a way that she would have wanted: defending her people. She died for Ser Jorah and the way I see it, there is no greater death than that of love. I would hope that if I do not die of old age, it would be protecting someone I love. That's a far greater and nobler death than the heroic tragedies sung of in ballads."

"She did love him," agreed Jon.

"Not in the way you believe. She loved _you_, Jon, but there existed an unexplainable bond between her and Ser Jorah that prompted her to do for him what he had done countless times for her. You don't have to understand why she did it; you just have to accept it."

"We've interrogated the survivors of the Red Keep, asking what happened to her body, but until we can push through every last bit of the rubble, we may never know. That's the worst of it, not knowing how she died, not having that closure."

Would it be worse to not know what had happened to a loved one or to have them alive and not remember a thing of their former lives? Sansa did not see one option as more desirable than the other. It had been so long since Sansa had had anything to be grateful for and she could not be shallow in desiring a whole, unharmed Sandor Clegane when Jon had lost Daenerys and would gladly have taken a wounded queen over none at all. As much as it hurt her to see him as nothing resembling his former self, Sansa was grateful to have the Hound with her, something she could not have accomplished had it not been for the sacrifices of Daenerys Targaryen and Jorah Mormont. She said a silent prayer, thanking both of them and promising to make the best of what they had given her.

Jon, however, was not so lucky in his uncertain future. Sansa and her brother were two sides of the same coin in that regard of which side fate favored and she did not want to leave him in his misery, but she knew her presence was not needed to bring him healing. His acceptance of his love's death had to come from his own sought-after answers, not from anything Sansa could tell or give him, and she knew some part of him still did not believe that Daenerys was dead because she deserved something grander in her departure from this world.

But great men and women did not always die great deaths. Robert Baratheon was gored by a wild boar. Jaime Lannister suffocated in a cellar. Her own father was beheaded. Compared to them, Daenerys died a dignified death, throwing herself into battle to save her dearest friend, paving the way to the decisions that led to Cersei's demise. She would not be remembered for making a wrong choice that resulted in her life; she would be remembered as the queen who had put her people before her throne. History would not remember how exactly she died, but how she had lived, and she had lived for those around her, not for herself.

Sansa let Jon hold her once more, both of them lingering on the comfort of the other's arms, knowing it would be the last time for many more years after their brief reunion of but a single year. This war had given them a bond they might not have had otherwise, made Sansa grateful for the family she still had, and made him grateful to have known what it was to _have _a family, but the pieces left to be picked up in the wake of the war had made it impossible for them to remain by each other's side. This was where they would part ways, for now.

/ /

Jon had assigned two of his best men to Sansa who it turn ordered that they prepare the Hound for departure on the day that the last of her escort was readied. The bodies of the honorable fallen were procured, Ghost was itching to be underway at the front of the procession, Bronn was struggling to mount his horse with one arm, and Sansa had only one matter left to attend to. She should have known that sending Jon's men to retrieve the Hound was destined for failure. Evrett and Lowry were given instructions to prepare the Hound, but Sansa had not taken into consideration that they were unaware of exactly what had been done to the Hound and thus, they did not go about their assignment properly.

She sent them into the Hound's tented compartment and almost immediately from within, she heard a maddened shout of alarm, a cry of pain, and the voices of the guards telling the Hound to be calm. Brushing past the exterior guards, she let herself into the tent to find the Hound holding a hand to his bandages which were soaked through after he had reopened his stitches in an attempt to defend himself. He held the wooden stool that Sansa had first found him perched on and was looking between the Stark guards, expecting an attack.

"We've only come to help you to your carriage, my lord," said Evrett.

The Hound's left eye was twitching madly, his shoulders heaving with the effort of a panicked breath.

_He thinks they're Lannister soldiers, come to hurt him again_.

He did not warn them away. She wanted to hear him tell the guards to fuck off. She wanted to hear him _say _something, but he was silent, broken, mad.

"Steady," she said quietly, pushing her way through the guards to show her face to the Hound in an effort to calm him.

"M'lady, he might have a go at you," warned Lowry.

"Take my hands, Sandor," Sansa instructed, both ignoring Lowry and offering out her hands to the Hound. "Take hold of me."

She saw that fear again, the same as when he had grabbed her after she bathed him. But she had broken through that fear, and she would not let his lack of response to her keep her from trying to breach those impenetrable walls once again. She reached out to him, inviting him to grasp her hands with gentle coaxing until her fingertips touched his knuckles.

"I won't hurt you," she told him, wondering how many times she would have to say it before he believed it, remembered it.

His hands turned slightly against her, brushing her skin, and she grasped them with reassuring pressure, pulling him closer to her. He would not walk, though, rooted like a tree that had been planted eons past and Sansa anticipated that she would have to break his trust in getting Evrett and Lowry to help her move him...until she heard gentle panting and looked around the Hound's sturdy legs to see Ghost standing there, digging his nose into the back of the Hound's thighs. The time it took for the Hound to react to the wolf was delayed more than Sansa would have liked, but he did look, at least. Ghost returned his gaze, wondering why this alpha of his pack did not recognize him. He nudged the Hound's leg again and then once more before the Hound worked his right hand into the wolf's fur, coming to a rest on the stitching Sansa had finally completed to seal his flesh wound. At the touch of the Hound's hand, Ghost moved forward two steps and the Hound followed with his other hand still encased in Sansa's.

Together, she and Ghost led him from his tent to the awaiting covered carriage and upon reaching it, the Hound stopped, looking back uncertainly over his shoulder to see the ruins of the city that had once been his home. Sansa turned his face away from the desolate sight.

"We're going home, Sandor."


	27. Chapter 27: So Little Left

**SANSA**

The Hound would not get up on his own and move about the carriage, though if he could, it would have been a tight fit with how Sansa had to guide his head to not knock against the ceiling of it every time she made him stand. He remained on the built-in bed within the carriage, his feet sticking out over the end even as he sat in it. He gazed blindly out the window as the countryside rolled by, its beauty wasted on him. At night, Ghost would invite himself into the already limited space of the carriage and lay his head in the Hound's lap and Sansa had a hope that some of him was returning when the latter would weave his fingers through Ghost's fur, but it never amounted to anything.

He refused to take meals and Bronn had to more or less force food down his throat, a task the knight often griped about, but took to all the same for Sansa's sake. Bronn alone was the individual who Sansa could rely on to help her tend to the Hound, as he had promised, but also, the Hound would not allow anyone else to touch him. Sansa could not say if he returned to his former self at those times, seizing whatever was nearest and brandishing it warningly at whoever dared to come close. After the second time he had nearly taken a man's head off at the shoulders with a hit from a soup ladle, Sansa had given the order that no one was to approach him without her leave. She did not need to have the people calling for his blood because he mindlessly killed an unsuspecting milk maid when she ventured too close.

In the close proximity of the carriage, Sansa could hear every creak of the floorboards at night and would liked to have heard him do something to rouse her, but long after he had fallen asleep, she would listen and be disappointed that he never uttered a sound. He slept as if dead with no twitching, no deep breathing, almost no _breathing_ at all and several times Sansa had thrown off her covers to run to his bedside and hold her hand over his nose and mouth, searching for warmth against her fingers to assure her that he had not died in his sleep.

By day, Bronn had to coax her out of the carriage to ride horseback and see sunlight, but she often cut her rides short to return to the Hound and try once again unsuccessfully to pull a reaction from him. She retold stories of how they came to meet, uttering words of his that had resonated with her and that she had stored in her vast memory reserves. Surely, he would remember things spoken between the two of them with no other ears to hear? And if not, nothing in this world could make him forget the things he had done for her, _to_ her. His soft caressing of her body when she showed him the work Ramsay had left behind on her, his powerful arms carrying her from the fallen wall of Winterfell's courtyard, his ravenous, primal kissing in the stables. That, of all things, would be sure to jar his memory, but nothing prevailed, not even the admittance of their one moment of passion.

Some fifteen days into their month-long journey upon entering the farthest extensions of the North, Sansa insisted on sharing a fire with Bronn in the shiver-inducing cold of the night. She had grown far too used to the Southern weather again and her return to the North always gave her an unpleasant reminder of the cold nights to come despite winter being well on its way out.

Supper consisted of rabbit stew and tacky rye bread, but Sansa did not have the stomach for any of it as she watched Bronn plant a bowl of the stuff in the Hound's hands and then tip it to its owner's mouth in suggestion. It was always quite painful having to watch this ritual. Sometimes the Hound would be able to manage on his own if Bronn put the food close enough to his mouth but other times Bronn had to feed him like a babe. Thankfully, this was one of those nights where the Hound possessed enough mobility to gulp down the stew on his own, though he was not aware of the gravy dribbling down his beard and Bronn used his sleeve to wipe the mess away before offering a wineskin to him.

As Bronn finished, he turned to his own stew which was now cold and wolfed his portion down with table manners as grotesque as the Hound's, though he cast a quick, longing glance at Sansa's uneaten ration before looking away. Sansa joined him on his stretch of grass and placed her bowl in his hands, pressing herself in close to his side for warmth.

"Thank you, for helping me with him. I know it's not your place—"

"We had this conversation before and me answer's not changed since then," said Bronn, his cheeks stuffed with her slice of bread. "For as long as you have to do this, you'll have my help, though if y'don't mind me sayin' so, I expect it'll be quite some time. The two've us might be nothin' but saggy tits and wrinkly balls by the time the big man comes around."

"You would serve me that long?" asked Sansa, unbothered by his impropriety. Nothing he said could shock her now, not when she had chosen the Hound for company long before she had chosen him.

"As long as you'll have me, m'lady. It's not my place to tell you this, but I know you'll see to 'im until one've you dies. You're devoted to 'im and I won't tell you now to give up on 'im, but one day, years from now maybe, that'll be the end. And as your friend, I'll tell you that when that day comes, you'll have to let 'im go."

"But what if I can't?" asked Sansa, for she had considered this many times as she waited to feel the Hound's breath across her palm in the dead of night. She feared that he might slip away at any moment without her knowledge, and then what would she do? It was difficult enough returning to a kingdom that needed her, but how could she be a worthy queen to so many when her attention was focused on but one?

"You can. You haven't made one bad decision since I've come into your service. None that were costly, anyway. You'll do what needs to be done and you'll have me behind you for whatever it is."

Tossing back his cloak, he nudged at the Hound's knee and then grabbed him by the elbow. "C'mon."

"Where are you taking him?" asked Sansa.

"To empty himself, m'lady. I know he hasn't pissed since this morning, otherwise I would've been the one cleaning his breeches, so he'll need to go right about now and I could use a leak meself."

Sansa busied herself with setting their dishes in the wash pail that Podrick came around collecting. She had not asked for the squire, but Tyrion insisted on sending him all the same and Podrick seemed happy enough to go with her and Bronn. Perhaps forlorn looking and somewhat homely in appearance when he moped, but otherwise a good lad, one who had to be of the same age as Sansa but one she still considered young regardless.

Presently Bronn returned, drawing his cloak tighter about himself as he took his seat beside Sansa.

"Where is Sandor?"

"Still takin' a piss," said Bronn, gesturing over his shoulder to where the Hound was relieving himself against the bushes. Sansa was glad that at least in this, he did not require assistance, as she felt that that went beyond what she should or could ask of her sworn shield. The Hound could not alert them as to when he had to urinate, but luckily he was able to hold it long enough that Sansa did not need to check him for stains every hour. As he tucked himself back into his breeches, his head gradually lifted to greet a looming figure rising up out of the gloom, its silhouette barely distinguishable by firelight.

It was a wolf, enormous in size, speckled grey and black on its back and white underneath. Its lips were pulled back, its nose wrinkled in warning.

On her feet in an instant, Sansa called, "Sandor, walk back to me now," but as always, he did not listen, deaf to a suggestion that might save his life. In fact, he did the exact opposite and lifted his hand to the wolf.

"Mad fucker's gonna get his hand bitten off at the wrist," said Bronn, placing himself in front of Sansa. "Doesn't even know that he's holding out a meaty meal to a wolf."

"He knows," said Sansa. She wasn't sure how she sensed it, but she knew that the Hound had returned in some form to interact with this wolf. She watched it tuck its head low, stalking forward on quiet paws with its teeth still bared as it came closer to the Hound. Then, it stopped at his hand and gave it a curious sniff before sitting back on its haunches and regarding him in puzzlement. A sign of submission.

"Wait here," she instructed Bronn.

"The fuck you mean 'wait here'?"

"Do as I say."

Sansa made her approach, suspecting that she knew just who this wolf was. As she stepped closer, she was able to gauge its size against the Hound and compare it to that of Ghost's. They were of the same height, which would make this wolf either a freak of nature—or a direwolf. One of six.

"Nymeria," she breathed and the wolf's ears tilted forward a fraction at the name it had long since forgotten.

It was her, Arya's wolf, full grown now. When last Sansa had seen her, she was still a pup, slightly bigger than her sister, Lady, and wild. She stood up as Sansa came to stand beside the Hound and made the same interested sniff in Sansa's direction, but with a different result in that she made a low growl in the form of a question.

_She wants to know where Arya is_.

"She's not here," Sansa told the direwolf. "But you know me, don't you? You remember me."

"Absolutely barking mad, the pair of you," said Bronn, coming up behind Sansa. "You get yourself killed and see'f I don't get blamed for it."

Nymeria snapped, showing her teeth and Bronn took a large step back, though his hands did not go for his weapons. He had learned the hard way to not challenge a direwolf. Sansa took hold of him to show Nymeria that he was no threat, but on that front, Ghost was already working. The albino wolf had snuck up on them, as he was wont to do, never blinking as he gazed upon his sister. He was ever so slightly smaller, but wider, and in a fight, that might just tip the scales in his favor, but there would be no fight.

The siblings approached each other and took a decent whiff of the other's hindquarters. There was no happy reunion of licking and whimpering as dogs did upon recognizing their littermates, but Sansa could see the recognition between the wolves and for the first time, she allowed herself to be at ease, though there was still some trepidation on Bronn's behalf.

Ghost nudged his muzzle against Bronn's hand to the surprise of all and Nymeria backed away from the knight. Surrounding her were glowing eyes, those belonging to her pack, and Sansa counted some eight or nine of them but by her command, none crept forward. If they had a mind to, the pack could swarm them, overtake Ghost and the three humans he allied himself with, but Nymeria was no ordinary wolf and so she understood who they were and why they were passing through her territory. With one final inquisitive glance, she sank back into the shadows and her pack followed, leaving only footprints in the mud behind them.

Sansa secured her hand around the Hound's waist and steered him back to their campfire where she made him sit beside her to share his body warmth. Bronn returned to the stew pot, tipping the last of it into his bowl that Podrick had wisely left behind. He let the last of his bread soak in the gravy.

"I fucking swear, the two of you were born to end up together, doing stupid things hand in hand like approaching a fucking pack of wolves with the mindset, 'they won't harm me because I'm a Stark'. The big man's walking comatose, but what's your excuse, girl? Godsdamned idiotic thing to do. I've never pissed meself before, but that was too close a thing, and mind you, I stared down that giant red and black dragon in battle before."

"The Starks have never feared wolves and neither should you. That was my sister's wolf before she had to chase it off to save its life. Nymeria savaged Joffrey when he tried to stab Arya for defending her friend. It's partly my fault and as a result my own wolf was put to the sword to appease Cersei, but I suppose Nymeria would not have survived King's Landing if she had made it all the way. Neither would my wolf. Joffrey would have had them both slain for sport once my father threatened Cersei. But Nymeria survived, as did Ghost, and they're the last of their litter."

"Aye, and that's a fascinating story, but I'm not a Stark and I'm not a dog, and that wolf was eyeing me like she was trying to figure out which bits of me are the juiciest," said Bronn, unappreciative of the direwolves' ancestry.

"She wouldn't have harmed you; Ghost wouldn't allow it. You're a part of the pack now, Ser Bronn, and Ghost protects his own."

"Even after this?" asked Bronn, rolling up his sleeve to show the angry raised white marks where a powerful set of jaws had tried to rip through the flesh.

"Even after that. He didn't know you then, and you were a threat to Sandor and me, but he's long since forgiven and forgotten that, otherwise he would have left you to burn in the war council tent."

Bronn turned to see Ghost's face close enough to lick him if he had a mind to and then Ghost stuck his muzzle into Bronn's bowl and made off with the last of his stew. Swiping out at the wolf, Bronn scrambled to his feet and gave chase, hollering, "I'll skin you alive and use your coat to wipe me arse, see'f I don't, you fucker!"

For the first time since well before she could remember, Sansa laughed as she watched Ghost allow Bronn within a few feet of him before taking off again all while Bronn swore to commit vile sins just to have his vengeance.

As the camp bedded down for the night, Sansa saw to her duties in tucking blankets around the Hound's shoulders, securing them to keep out the cold since no fire could be lit inside the carriage. She knew he would be awake for some hours yet, but she could not stand to pass one more night of silence from him and so in desperation, she decided to attempt something no one would approve of if they walked in on her doing it. The Hound's eyes roamed the ceiling where the last flies of the southlands were clinging to the warmth gathered there before dropping down dead on the wooden floor. Sansa climbed onto the bed with him, settling beside his outstretched legs and gently pulling his face forward to be level with hers and running her thumbs over every inch of it. If her words could not reach him, her touch must. It had to.

_Tell the gods that have you to give you back. You aren't finished here._

It cut through her like a hot knife through butter to have him in her hands and not have him see her. She was close enough that she could close the small distance between them and lay her lips upon his if she dared. Would that be enough? Would that strike some memory within him?

If only she could be that bold, even if he was not here with her to see it.

His hand snatched out at her, trapping her jaw in his powerful fingers. Unprepared for this sudden hostile movement, Sansa released his face, throwing up her hands to show she meant no harm. He drew her closer, staring at her in confusion, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her and she would have welcomed it if it meant he had returned to her, but he was examining her, trying to place her face.

"It's just me," she told him soothingly.

A trick of the light perhaps, or her own vivid imagination running away with the better part of her senses, but she could have sworn that just then, she saw fire behind his eyes. Not wildfire, but true, burning flames of red, orange, yellow, and white. What a strange thing to see in the eyes of the man who feared it, hated it more than anything…

Sansa wondered if perhaps she was suffering from cabin fever, going mad by cooping herself up in this carriage with him day after day and seeing no improvement in his condition.

"Jorah."

Her heart leapt into her throat, gagging her and sending her body awash in ice, sure that she had imagined his voice, positive that a part of her had finally taken the plunge of insanity after him.

"Sandor, look at me."

He did, straight at her, eyes deliberately _on_ her, _seeing _her.

"Do you know me?"

His ragged mouth opened and she had to stare unabashedly at his lips to be sure that she was hearing this from his own mouth.

"Where…is he?

His last words to her had been to wait to burn the knight. They had been shaken, broken words, but she knew he had still been with her when he spoke them. He knew in that moment that Ser Jorah was dead, but if he did not know now, Sansa was uncertain that she wanted to find out what else he could not remember. If the gods sent him back to her, only to have his memories wiped clean, rendering him unable to recall vital information, then she was truly their scapegoat for punishing the human race. Only the gods would take the Hound and give him back with half of his memories.

"He-he's dead, Sandor."

"_Where_?"

"In a carriage not far behind us. We are transporting his body home and his pyre will allow him to join his family. You asked me to wait for you, and I have."

The Hound sat back, fingers falling away from her face and by the time his hand had settled on his lap once again, that alert look, that bit of him that had been _him_ had flickered and died out.

"Sandor…"

But he was gone again, lost in the world of fire and torture he had lived in for too long.

/ /

It was to alarm that the camp awoke the following morning at the sight of wolves seemingly stalking the wagons, but Sansa and Bronn quickly had to go dispel the panic. She spotted Nymeria at the lead, well out of shooting distance of mediocre archers but close enough that Sansa could see her looking to each carriage as it passed by, no doubt searching for Arya.

The pack gave their procession an escort, traveling beyond reach but within sight by day, hunting by night, and serenading them with the mournful howls of their alpha before they bedded down. The Hound would remain sitting upright on the nights when they heard Nymeria crying for her fallen human companion and though Sansa tried to outlast him, he only ever slept when his eyes could no longer remain open in his relentless stare. It was to the image of him looking out his window to watch the visible curdling breaths of the wolves just outside the camp that she often fell asleep.

When they arrived within sight of Winterfell, the pack finally fell back and Sansa opened the back of the carriage to watch Nymeria bid Arya farewell with one last howl before disappearing back over the moor and disappearing into the fog.

Bran awaited them in the courtyard in his wheeled chair with Tormund Giantsbane and Maester Wolkan by his side. As ever, he was unreadable, but he would know every minute detail since Sansa's departure and she found herself actually grateful for that gift. She did not have the strength to recount it all again.

"Hello, Sansa."

She went to him and hugged him despite knowing he would not hug her back. He knew she would need this, and he would let her hold him. It did not have the desired effect in soothing any part of her emotional and physical wreck of a body. She had hoped that she would return to Winterfell none the worse but besides being able to stand on her own two feet, she felt as if she had broken off into enough pieces to require more than Bran to reassemble her.

"Your brother said Jon Snow's alive still," said Tormund Giantsbane.

She had never spoken directly to the wildlings before and was unaccustomed to their blunt way of speaking to people: lords, ladies, knights, and queens alike. The freefolk had no titles and it would make sense that they refused to adhere to the custom, but it was still rather shocking to have the enormous ginger man step in so close to her to ask after Jon.

"He is," she confirmed. If Tormund lived among wargs and giants, someone with the gift of hindsight and foresight like Bran would not be one to ignore, but he clearly wanted to hear the truth from Sansa's own mouth.

"But the Dragon Queen is dead."

"She died to save her people."

"And Mormont and Clegane?"

She had poorly misjudged the wildlings many times before, but none moreso than this one whose concern was for her brother and the two men who had gone north of the Wall with him.

"Ser Jorah fell in battle protecting Sandor Clegane. And Sandor is—not well."

"Where is he?"

"Inside the carriage, but you mustn't touch him. He has tried to attack anyone who isn't me or my sworn shield—"

Her words fell on deaf ears as Tormund directed his people to the carriage and they stormed it like a castle under siege, battering down the door and moving in. Sansa expected to hear the Hound's alarmed shouts, but none came. Instead, Tormund himself led the Hound by the arm and took him before Bran.

"This is what you saw?" Tormund asked Bran.

"Yes," said Bran, extending a bare hand to touch the Hound's bandaged chest. "This, exactly."

Sansa waited for one of them to explain to her why the Hound was such a vital part of whatever understanding the two of them had, but neither had an answer that was forthcoming. She requested that Maester Wolkan see to the Hound and have him set up in his old bedroom (though Tormund and his people took to this task as well, all but hoisting the Hound onto their shoulders to carry him inside) and then allowed the rest of the procession to disperse. Grateful though she was that Bran had ordered a small welcoming party, she knew she was still attracting much unwanted attention from the burns on her face.

Bronn brought up the cart carrying the bodies of Arya and Ser Jorah and Sansa directed him to the maester's quarters. Now that the bodies had been borne home, there was no use in prolonging the pyre building. Even if the Hound was not mentally present to witness it, they could not wait any longer to burn the dead.

"And when you have finished, ser, you will take my brother Jon's old quarters," Sansa told Bronn.

"But those are a lord's chambers, m'lady."

"Indeed, they are."

He offered no further question, leaving Sansa to wheel Bran inside for the conversation he knew was coming and she was not prepared for. She would have to guard both her tongue and her heart, for she could not blame him for what had occurred since her departure. He had warned her of the consequences of knowing the future and then trying to prevent it and had only given her the information she needed, but she could not help but feel as if she had been played the fool in some way.

She felt cheated, duped, and above all, betrayed that she had taken Bran's words to heart and come out just as poor on the other end.

In the privacy of his room on the ground floor, Sansa brought his chair to a rest before the fireplace and was about to take the seat opposite him when he prompted her into action.

"He would be worse off if he did not have you to care for him."

"You said he would come back to me, if he survived," said Sansa, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice. "You told me there's no future you could see where if he survived, he wouldn't come back to me."

"And he has."

"No, he hasn't! That man is not Sandor Clegane. That is an empty, unaware, unfeeling _thing_."

"You don't believe that," said Bran levelly. "You're impatient because you heard him speak and you thought he had made a full recovery, only to see him disappear again. But he can't come back the same as he was, not as the man he had been. He was wounded too deeply, suffered too great a loss in the Black Cells. Ser Jorah's death was the very last of it he could stand and for a man who never had much to begin with to suddenly lose all he thought that was left to him, he could not remain with you in both body and soul. If his mind had not gone, it would have killed him."

"He had me," Sansa protested in spite of herself. "He hadn't lost everything."

"In that moment with just him, Ser Jorah, and the fire, that man was all he had. That man was all he had for weeks in the darkness. Ser Jorah was the only part of his world that existed for so long and he relied on him, only to lose him when he most needed him. He let you go, he let Arya go, and he accepted that he was going to die."

Indignant that Bran could claim to know the Hound better than her, know his heart and know what had snatched him away, Sansa wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to be angry with the Hound for thinking there was nothing left to salvage but Ser Jorah's corpse as King's Landing burned. How could he think that when she had refused to leave without him and he had had to force her?

"But I'm still here. He's still here and I know he heard me, I know he hears me when I talk to him."

"He saw you; he didn't hear you. He will come back, but it is not his time. He will leave many more times after this, but he will always come back, until the last time."

"What does that _mean_, Bran? Can you not give me a direct answer?"

"That is as clear as I can explain. The man you love will come back to you when it is his time, when you tell him that you want him."

What sort of rubbish was that? If he had not yet come back despite the hours she spent trying to reach him with fond recollections of their time together, how would this be any different? She _had _told him that she wanted him to return to her and he didn't hear her. There was nothing else she could do for him, nothing left to give him.

"You mean to tell me that if I look him in the eye and confess to loving him that he will suddenly come out of this stupor?" she asked Bran, ashamed to be reliant on this, of all things, to bring her Hound back to her.

"No, but he will hear you."

/ /

**SANDOR**

His world consisted of a surface on which to stand and nothing else. No sound in the silence, no sight of another soul, no feel of his own body. He wandered without ever reaching a destination, calling out for someone he didn't know and not being able to hear his own voice. There was no sense of time here and he did not know how long he traveled this endless road, but he knew he had come to something other than nothingness when a shape began to take form before him, morphing upward, twisting and sprouting every which way to become a willow tree with no color. Weary, he sat down, resting his back against its gnarled trunk and letting his eyes fall closed until he heard, for the first time in what was surely forever.

The sound of _sound_ startled him, for he had gone so long without hearing, it was almost a foreign sense to him.

It was a voice, and one that he unfortunately knew well.

"Can't say I'm surprised to find you here, Clegane."

"I thought I'd gotten rid of you north of the Wall," Sandor told the Red Priest grimly.

Thoros of Myr sat down beside him, offering his pouch of rum that Sandor took a pull from with a grimace. It had close to no taste here in this world of being in-between, but what little he could taste hurt his teeth, far too sweet as ever.

"Still don't care for the taste?" asked the priest.

"Not after you've been at it."

"And you're still the grouchy bear you've always been, only you're the Lord of Light's bear now."

"I will fucking strangle you with what little hair's left on your head, priest, tell your Lord of Light that. Both of you'd do well to remember I'm a dog, not a bear."

"Dog, bear, it's all the same to him. But you're still one sour old grump."

"And you're still a bald cunt, you and your Lord of Light. If he had plans for me, he had a fucking terrible way of showing it, letting Cersei Lannister burn me some three or four times over."

"Did she? I'm sorry to hear that. The Lord has told me you've been through much since I passed from your world but I haven't worried about you, knowing you were in good hands so long as the Lord had his sights on you. He has had your mind lately, hasn't he? You've not been aware of your own body for so long, you've no idea what's going on in your world. I believe you are returning to the North with the red-haired lady you fancy but your mind yet remains with our Lord."

"Well, then tell him to give it the fuck back. I have a friend to lay to rest."

Thoros almost choked on his rum. "You found yourself another friend?"

"For a while. Friends of mine don't last long, which is why you and Beric are both dead."

"That's a lovely thing to say. So tell me, who is this friend? Or rather, who _were_ they?"

"Don't all you dead people know already? Prying into the business and private affairs of those who're still alive? You knew my body's been unresponsive in the world of the living, you know that they're taking me back to Winterfell, so how do you not know what else has gone on?"

"It's not as you might think. The dead don't all press our noses against your windows as ghosts and watch you sleep or fuck or take a shit. There are some things we know and some things we don't. I don't know who this friend of yours is."

"Was," Sandor corrected. "And you do know him: Jorah Mormont."

He should have started to learn to time his delivery of news better, for now Thoros spat out his rum in genuine disbelief and choked hard enough that Sandor had to thump him across the back. Eyes streaming, Thoros took another swig to soothe his throat before asking, "Jorah Fucking Mormont? The old bear of Bear Island, the most straightforward, no-nonsense, humorless knight in the Seven Kingdoms? Of all the disagreeable men in the Seven Kingdoms, you picked _him_? How did you manage that?"

"Ask him when you see him, if you see him."

"He's not here yet."

"Fuck's that mean? Where's _here_? If you're dead and I'm talking to you, where is he?"

"Not here yet," answered Thoros simply.

"All you fucking fire worshippers couldn't give me a straight answer in life and you're just as bloody confusing in death."

Thoros chuckled, capping his pouch. "You'll see, soon enough. When you wake, you'll see."

"If there's a place where the dead go after they've been killed already, I'm about to send you there, priest."

"Maybe once long ago, before the Lord of Light found you in the sea of lost and weary travelers, but not anymore. He softened your heart, Clegane."

"If the next word out of your mouth isn't something I can understand—"

"He knows your heart already, Sandor Clegane. He found you as a boy and laid his kiss upon your face. You feared the flame, always aware of it, always watching to know if it would strike again. And you saw shapes that you couldn't understand. It was the Lord's way of reaching out to you, telling you of your fate. He used the Blackwater to turn you from the Lannister path and set you on the right one. You were burnt again in his service and you conquered it when you sacrificed your brother to the Lord's torches. You accepted it when you lay your life down to douse it when it claimed your little bird. You were born again from it when you willingly jumped into it with the body of Jorah Mormont in your arms. You were healed by it when the Lord's own blessed animal, the dragon, sealed your wound. Born of flame, blessed by flame, and lover of flame, for she is a true beauty, and she has been renewed by the Lord's light as you were. You were destined to live your life by fire, my friend."

"Would've had to have _been_ with her to be her lover."

And then he heard her. No words, just a voice that was undeniably hers.

Thoros flashed him an all-knowing grin. "Then go to her. The Lord is sending you to her, so wake, and find her."

"Let me just do that, you twit. If I could do that of my own free will, I would have long ago instead of walking around this fucking empty stretch for as long as I have."

"The Lord sends you home now, Clegane. Make the most of it."

Thoros erupted into a wisp of grey smoke and then Sandor felt himself falling away, no footing beneath him. He landed on something soft and instantly became aware of the pain lancing through him from hip to shoulder. Then, something else, something that wasn't pain, but a presence.

A warm pressure on his stomach, deep breathing. He pulled his eyelids apart with some difficulty after they had been glued shut with tear duct buildup and lifted his head a fraction of an inch to see two red orbs watching him.

"How the fuck did you get in here?" he asked, his voice more gravelly than usual due to its lack of use.

The direwolf blinked in response and then crawled up toward his face to lick at him. It took enormous effort to raise his hand and block the incoming tongue and as he did, his world was pulled into focus, showcasing the familiar room that had once belonged to some Stark or another but had been his when last it was used. _His_ room. Winterfell.

And if he was in Winterfell, the Stark girls would be nearby, so why the fuck was he still abed? He had to get up and go to them—a decision he regretted even before he'd begun as his body protested his rapid throwing back of his covers.

Slender fingers on his right arm eased him back against the mountain of pillows that had been piled up behind him to support his broad frame. Still feeling the gunk of ages trying to keep his eyes sealed shut, Sandor rubbed at them and then took in the sight of a beautiful, burned face just feet from his own.

The damage was not as severe as Sandor's had been, but she had been burned with wildfire, which left a special kind of mark. The scarring was not pale flesh-toned like his, but almost white, nearly matching her own natural color. The marks ran from the right side of her jaw and trickled down the same side of her neck, covering half of her throat and reaching down into her dress where her collarbone was.

Now she knew why fire was a thing to fear.

But if she was here, where was the other? He had known that the little bird was still alive, had felt her just before entering that place of uncertainty where Thoros had found him, but the girl…

"Where is she?" he demanded and the intensity of his question was obviously not something the little bird had been expecting, for she leaned back for but a moment in hesitation. He made to rise again, but she was still trying to make him lay back down.

"Be still," said the little bird.

"Don't fucking tell me to be still when I don't know what in seven hells has happened."

"Do you remember nothing? You've been unresponsive since King's Landing fell and no one has been able to get through to you. You missed the end of winter and our return to Winterfell, you were gone for so long. Where did you go?" There was almost an accusatory tint to her voice that Sandor did not appreciate as if _he_ had decided it was a good idea to take temporary leave of his body.

"Hells if I know where the fuck I went, now what happened?"

"You're alive, you're safe, and the war is over—"

"I don't care about the fucking war, girl. Your sister…where is she?"

The little bird had no words and Sandor felt his world drop away into nothing. She had been breathing. She had been _alive_, dammit. He had felt her heartbeat under his hand, felt her breath against his ear. When he brought her to her sister, she had been alive.

"The wound to her head was irreversible. She was bleeding from the inside, the maesters told me," said the little bird in a higher voice than normal, wavering on the verge of spilling over. "She never woke up. She died only a few short hours after Bronn brought your body to the beach."

"No," said Sandor, sitting up insistently even as his body pleaded with him to lie down. "She was alive. I went back for her and she was still breathing. I fucking felt it!"

He could feel her hands attempting to push him down again, to comfort or restrain him, but he let out a snarl and she withdrew as he screamed at her, "Don't fucking touch me!"

His rage deterred her for only a moment, then she climbed onto the bed, laced her arms around his shoulders, and pulled his back to her. Her fingers nestled just beneath his good ear on one side and anchored him in place with her other hand. "Please, stop," she whispered.

"I said don't fucking touch me," he spat, but she held fast to him and he had lost his weapon in having her unafraid of his anger.

"Don't do this right now. Not after everything."

"Let go of me, damn you, girl."

"Shh, I have you."

Transported back to the moment he had extinguished the last of the wildfire from her, he recalled the same words from his own mouth, easing her, consoling her when nothing else could. She was trying to be that strength for him now, but he didn't want her here. He wanted his anguish to be his own.

He tried to stand, but he was too weak. He tried to wriggle out of her grasp, but he was too weak. He tried to hold back the burning in his eyes so that she would not see him weep, but he was too fucking weak and it all came out in what sounded like desperate choking for breath rather than actual sobbing. Through it all, she refused to let go of him and he finally collapsed on his side, blocking out it all through tightly clasped eyes.

Ghost made room for himself under Sandor's arm, insisting that Sandor pet him and though he had no want for it, he obliged the wolf, staggered to find that stroking the soft pelt calmed him. As he lay on his side with the wolf pressed in against his chest, he felt something come to rest on his shoulder and his peripheral vision showed strands of red hair hanging down over him as the little bird set her head upon him. Her arms were still wrapped around him.

There was no suggestion of sensuality or affection; this was simply one human clinging to another as they shared their grief over a lost loved one. Except, he did not want her touching him. The feel of her was unfamiliar to him and he did not understand—no, more than that—he hated it. He had wanted her to hold him like this for so long, to give in to him and allow herself to touch and be touched by him, and he had yearned for it when the only touch he knew was that of the Queensguard manhandling him, but this did not feel right as it once had and for the life of him, he could not fathom _why_.

He did his best to ignore the presence of her, but it was difficult when she was wrapped so tightly around him from behind that he could feel her with every breath. Quiet sniffles and a dankness soaking through his sleeve told him she was having her cry-out and he let her be, not encouraging her but still wanting to while being unable to. Gods damn it all, she was his, wasn't she? No one had ever touched her as he had; he had made her his in all ways but the way that mattered most but she was still his, so why the fucking hells could he not turn into her and hug her to him? Why was it so difficult to remember what he had felt for her?

_Because you got her sister killed. You got Mormont killed because you wouldn't listen to her when she tried to stop you from going. You wanted Gregor's blood and it cost them their lives,_ the voice of judgment in his mind told him.

"It wasn't your fault," countered the little bird's voice near his ear. "She wanted to go back for you. She loved you."

He didn't want to hear this. He knew that girl loved him, and he couldn't bear it. That love for him had brought her to her death, as it had Jorah Mormont, as it had and would anyone who tried. He was a cursed being.

"No, don't think that," said the little bird as if she could see his face from her vantage point and know how his thoughts tormented him so. "Because of you I was able to be with her when she passed, otherwise her ashes would be scattered in what remains of the city. You brought her to me and I can put her to rest because of that. You gave me that because you loved her."

"Stop that right now, girl."

"You did. I saw it when you put her on the horse with me. You were frightened for her."

"I only looked out for her as well as your father ever could. Dogs and wolves look out for their own."

"You saw her as your own?"

"Part of the pack."

"Then you should know that it was her job to protect you as much as it was yours to protect her. Neither of you failed and she wouldn't let you go on thinking that, so stop."

"Fine," he told her shortly and as he expected, she was not convinced.

"You stubborn man, look at me."

He did, turning his neck to see her now sitting up above him. Once again his eyes caught the kiss of fire upon her right side. He had the urge to touch her there, but it would invite more than he could give her. He had nothing for her now and it wasn't godsdamned fair. This was what Mormont had worked to give him, why Thoros's Lord of Light supposedly set his mind free, but he was empty to her. People had died to bring him to her, to give him the one thing he had ever wanted, and now he couldn't have her because the dead would not allow him to. What a fucking horrible joke to play.

The little bird subconsciously touched some of the burned skin along her neck and then refocused her gaze on the damaged portion of his face.

"We make quite the pair, don't we?"

"Pair of what?"

"Wolves."

"I'm a dog."

"A dog chosen by wolves."

"A dog that got wolves killed."

She moved off of his bed, wounded by every inaction and word she had received from him. He had hurt her by not responding to her, by returning to her as a man she didn't know. He knew what had been done to him, but he could not reverse its effect. Everything he had hoped for for the two of them could not be when too many had died to give it to him. Or rather, not too many, but the two who mattered most.

She left him without a farewell, forcing him to battle the night alone and the dreams he knew would come. He was reluctant to sleep, fearing that he might slip away again only to come back more damaged than before, but he had nothing with which to distract himself to keep himself awake. The toll the news of the girl's death had on him was instantaneous and he could no longer counter the urge to sleep, but it was all the better that he return to that land of blissful recollection. At least there, he couldn't hurt anyone else.


	28. Chapter 28: Wherein Dwell the Dead

**SANDOR**

He did not count the days, but he knew them to be more than he had fingers and throughout that time, she did not come back. Sandor stayed abed except to urinate and saw no one but a serving girl who brought him his meals and took them away untouched. He sat with his head in his hands, elbows perched on his knees as he tried to force the images of his past out of his mind. Hours spent inwardly screaming at the gods to clear his head and give back what they had stolen left him feeling like his brain was nothing but a soggy sponge and he made himself sick in overworking his underfed body.

The serving girl was careful to not speak to him, no doubt to avoid his wrath in his habit for lashing out at unsuspecting maids, but she did see to it that he was properly cared for in the few ways he allowed. She prepared a bath for him, brought him new clothes, and left the door open at night for Ghost to come and go as he pleased. She also knew to not light a fire in the hearth, something Sandor suspected she had been given specific instructions not to do.

He found himself crying out in the night, expecting to extend his foot and find Mormont's heel and then the cold splash of recollection washed over him and he would bite down on his pillow to stifle the shouts of frustration and agonizing loneliness. Nearly every morning his attendant had to check his pillows to see if they would need repairing since he had bitten two to shreds already.

Multiple times he thought that he saw the little bird in the darkness when he woke sweating and panting from a horrible reimagining of his cell but by the time he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he was alone once again and was sure he had imagined her. He could not help feeling that what he saw in both the waking world and his dreams were starting to bleed over into each other, making it difficult to discern one from the other. At one point after seemingly envisioning the little bird, he made his way out of bed and limped over to the door, feeling the handle for warmth to see if she really had been in the room with him. He thought he felt heat there once and had a mind to go after her, but if she had wanted to be with him, she would have stayed and he could not bring himself to seek her out.

It was maddening, needing her and knowing that he should want her, but fearing to take her back. The cost of being with her would be too steep a price to pay and he could not make her pay more than she had. The pain this indecision brought him made him spend hours tossing about on his bed, wishing she would come down from the room above and _say _something to him, but he had done what he meant to in driving her away. She would not come while he was awake, and that was the very best he could do for her. If his presence had taken away everything else from her, he could at least do her the courtesy of not taking anything more.

On a night where he had nearly beaten himself to sleep by clenching at his scalp until he bled, he allowed himself to weep where no one could hear him. There was no one left to turn to when he was so lost and uncertain of what good he could still do for this world. If the gods had returned him to his little bird only to curse him with the guilt of her sister's death, why did they send him back at all? Why didn't they keep him and let him fade instead of allowing that he would be put through this agony of existing as this broken being?

Fuck them all. The gods who toyed with him like they always had, tossing his fate from hand to hand and not caring about the outcome if they dropped it. The gods who had permitted Gregor to rape his sister, who had let Cersei wreak havoc on his body, who had allowed Mormont to die in his arms. Fuck every last one of them. If they wanted him to end it himself, he would. He fucking would to leave this empty, meaningless existence behind…

/ /

Again he walked in the world of nothing but for the sound of crunching snow beneath him. He could not see it, but he knew how it felt underfoot. His path led him across a valley where the wind whistled hard and harsh against him, though he could not feel its chill. Then, he came to an island made of stone set in the middle of a frozen lake and upon it stood a figure clearly waiting for his arrival. Sandor came to the base of the island, looking almost directly vertical up at the figure as the man's cloak billowed around him.

"Your beard is shorter," observed the man. "And you're thinner."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, why won't you people just stay dead and leave me alone? Where do you keep coming from? And if you say something about the Lord of Light sending you to me, so fucking help me, Dondarrion…"

"I asked to come," said the man himself. "Not many of the dead visit you in your dreams; I figured you could use the company."

"Are you alone, then?"

"Aye, for now. But they will come when they're ready. They haven't crossed over completely yet. Be patient, and they will come to you when it's time."

Sandor didn't want them to come to him. He wanted to let them be dead and be done with it, but every part of him ached to speak to them again, say a proper goodbye. If he had known that the girl would never wake up, he might have said something different to her, and if he had had another chance to speak to Mormont, he definitely wouldn't end it by calling him a cunt.

"Why're you here?" asked Sandor.

"The Lord allowed me to come, seemed to agree with me that you needed to speak to someone before what is to happen next."

"That's your one pass, Beric. If you mention that fiery fucker again or speak to me in riddles like Thoros did, I'll stab out your other eye and then you'll be dead _and _blind."

"It's a sad thing that your temper could not be tamed during your time spent as Cersei's prisoner. She broke you of almost everything else but that _temper_ runs as foul as ever. Perhaps that is something that you must address on your own—or with the help of your woman."

"She's not—"

"You think she is. You've thought that for a long time. And she staked claim over you, didn't she?"

"How is it you know that but Thoros had no idea that Mormont was the one to die for me?"

This business of being dead and figuring out to just what extent the dead understood things was making Sandor's head pound.

"This is a dream, Clegane, but it's also a manifestation of what goes on inside your own mind. I exist there and here, when the Lord sends me to you. And the dead never visit in quite the same way twice."

"I'd prefer you didn't visit at all."

"I won't, not after this, but you'll remember me when you wake and remember that I urge you to be more than you think you can be. Through your actions, this is the life you have built for yourself, so don't let us be the reason you can't live it."

If these people—the long-dead and recently deceased—were part something other-worldy and part something developed in his own mind, why weren't they telling him why he couldn't bring himself to pick up where he had left off and resume his pursuit of the woman he still wanted to want? Why were there no answers for what had changed in him since returning to himself?

"I can't help you answer that, but maybe another friend can," said Dondarrion with that evil half-smirk Sandor could scarcely stand. "Take our words to heart, Clegane, we don't begrudge you for surviving when we didn't, but we do ask that you make our deaths and sacrifices mean something. Consider it."

Then he took a step back from Sandor and his body froze over before shattering into thousands of ice crystals which reformed into a giant frozen waterfall before him. If anything, dreams had taught him to be wary of the unnatural and not trust in the images he saw, but he had now spoken to two dead men and was none the worse for it. He touched his fingertips to the solid ice, only to find his hand going through water instead. Stepping forward, he emerged on the other side of a roaring falls that fed into a fast-flowing river. The river led down into a valley where a half-built sept stood and hammering away at the timbers was a man Sandor knew, not well, not long, but long enough. The journey to the sept should have taken an hour, two at the most, and yet again, there was no sense of time and Sandor found himself standing beneath the sept before he was aware of having started walking toward it.

"Pass up the bucket of nails, there's a good lad," said the wiry-haired man mounting the ladder to the second level.

Sandor lifted the bucket that had materialized by his feet and Brother Ray took a handful of nails, sticking all but one between his lips and hammering them one by one into place. Mid-swing, he glanced down at Sandor and gave a throaty chuckle in his deep, yet raspy voice, displaying those uncommonly large, straight, white teeth.

"She's a real beauty, this woman of yours. You never told me about her."

"Why the fuck does everyone keep saying that?"

"Why aren't you confirming it?" countered Ray.

"Because she's not _mine_, godsdammit."

"But you'd like her to be. You still want her to be, but you can't because of what was done to you," said Ray wisely.

"I know that," said Sandor irritably.

"Of course you do. I'm just your conscience working things out in your head for you with the appearance of being someone else. Speaking to someone about what goes on in your mind helps to sort out the good intentions from the idiotic ones and right now you aren't doing yourself any favors in blocking out the poor girl."

He wasn't doing her any favors if he allowed her to waste herself on him, either. Even with Cersei dead, there would always be some jealous bitch who wanted to hurt the little bird and Sandor was determined that he would never be used to that extent again. He would not allow anyone to use him to hurt the few poor bastards who gave a shit about him.

"You remember when you kissed her in the stables and she retreated into herself and left you with nothing? You only understood after why she wouldn't accept you, because of what had been done to her, because she lived in the past and with the people who existed there. That is where you are now. You are trying to live in a time and place with people who are gone, but not out of fear like she did. You live with guilt."

"What of it?"

"Is that where you want to be? Living in memories—_aargh_, fuck." Ray dropped his mallet and waved off the pain in his thumb after having missed the nail.

"I've no reason to. I don't have any worth reliving."

"Not entirely true, but I see your point. You can't live with her until you're ready to let go of those you've lost and that's never been a harder thing to ask of you than now because the ones you lost were all you had for too long. You let yourself grow attached and when they left you, it broke you."

"I've always been fucking broken. There's just more pieces to pick up this time."

"Lay the dead to rest, Clegane, and let them go. You don't have to forget them and you don't have to stop grieving them, but you have to accept that their care for you wasn't what killed them. None it was your fault."

"Somehow I'm not convinced."

"Let them tell you that themselves. And I'll tell you this: it wasn't hate that kept you alive when I found you. I know that now as I see your face plainly. You're new to this arena, but you've been trying to enter it for some time and now you have your chance, so bloody well fight for the prize."

"I did fight for it but the fucking door's closed on that battle and I can't open it again," said Sandor hopelessly. He wanted to walk through that doorway and take what was waiting for him on the other side, but it was a door that could only be accessed from his side and he didn't have the key to open it.

"You can. You will, but not yet. If you only learned one thing of virtue from me, let it have been patience. You mean well, but you often spoil the journey by being too premature in your arrival. Be patient, my friend. If you want it, it will come to you—with patience."

Ray began to climb down and Sandor held the ladder steady for him. Dismounting, Ray took the water ladle from a hanging bucket and doused himself, shaking the wetness from his eyes. "Expect at least one more of us soon, but in the meantime, you have a job to do."

"And what's that?"

"It involves fire. Are you prepared for that?"

In this place of the non-living, Sandor still felt a chill shoot down his spine. Fire. He would have to brave it one last time as a promise. He had told Mormont that much, but what if he was unable to take the torch in hand? What if he could not even attend the ceremony to see his friend put to eternal rest?

"You can," said Ray comfortingly. "You laid down on top of fire to put it out when it was going to claim your woman. Not a strategy I recommend attempting twice, though."

"I should have buried you," said Sandor as some form of apology. "I should have stopped to at least do that."

"If you had, you would never have caught up to the Brotherhood in time to join them, never taken up with them, never made it to Winterfell where your lovely little bird was. I told you there was a reason you're still here—or rather, _there_ since I'm not there anymore, but I knew the gods weren't finished with you yet. They still aren't and they aren't going to damn you just because you didn't stop to bury some old shit like me. Besides, the Brotherhood sent scouts to the settlement and burned our bodies anyway. No, you don't owe me an apology for that, my friend. Avenging me was enough. But now you really must be going and I must finally try to finish this godsdamned sept."

Before either of them could say more, the ground swallowed both Ray and the sept and Sandor felt himself drifting, coming to settle once again on something soft and feeling the return of his mortal pain. If it was possible, he awoke more exhausted than he had been when he entered his dreams, only now he also felt empty knowing that he would have no company to greet him.

He was partially wrong.

As before, Ghost had his head on Sandor's thigh, though this time he remained where he was instead of trying to lick Sandor's face raw. He could not say it in words the wolf would understand, but with how the direwolves seemed to sense their pack's emotions, Ghost would surely know the gratitude Sandor felt to at least have one friend not claimed by the war.

"How the hell do you keep getting in here?" Sandor asked the wolf.

"I let him in," said his bedside companion and he found the sellsword seated there, legs crossed as he leaned back in his chair eating the supper someone had set out for Sandor. "He was scratching at the door for hours and no one heard him 'til I came by to check in on you. Way I heard it, he belongs to the North but Jon Snow's not coming back up North and the wolf knows it, so he's looking for someone to be his new best mate and I think he's settled. Snow entrusted him to House Stark. He named his brother Brandon, Lady Sansa, and you as the wolf's guardians. Wolves belong to House Stark as do dogs now, apparently."

"I'm not—"

"The girl asked the council for House Clegane to be a noble house of the North, one of her bannermen. The North no longer belongs to the Seven Kingdoms, and House Clegane no longer belongs to them either. That makes you a lord of the new era of your house and the only member of your house and all that shite that comes with it."

"Get me a fucking horse so I can ride back to King's Landing and tell those pricks that I'll accept no such thing," growled Sandor, half-heartedly sitting up.

"A right tosser you are, and an ungrateful one at that," observed Bronn. "The council wanted to send you to the Citadel to be poked up the arse by maesters trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with you, but she fought for you, _demanded_ you, actually."

"She has no business deciding what's best for me."

Bronn pulled his chair closer to the bed and delivered one harsh, blindsided slap to Sandor's cheek. It was such an unexpected move that Sandor had no reaction other than to blanch.

"Listen to me, you cunt, that girl's been a bleeding mess since you left her. You could've saved her a lot of a pain by just doing like she wanted and keepin' yourself close by, but you didn't. She hardly slept, she worried all day, all she could talk about was you. And then when you came out've the Blackwater, unresponsive as you were, that was nearly the end for her. She and I cleaned you off, got you into new clothes, and she cried long into the night after she'd thought you'd gone for good because you didn't know her anymore. And now you're back and you won't let her anywhere near you, so take a good fucking guess how she's coping with that."

Sandor knew how she was coping with that—about as well as he was, if not worse.

"You're acting as fucking prideful and stubborn as she was when the entire godsdamned country could see that she wanted you. How the fuck d'you think that makes her feel when she gave everything for you, only to have you sit there and tell her to fuck off? You've got the brains the gods gave a pigeon when you decided you had to go kill your brother instead of stay with her like she wanted you to, when you went bloody comatose for two months, and when you then came back acting like she's the one who did it all to you. So the second you can stand on your own, you're gonna get your arse up out've that bed, go to her, and make things right because you're a dumb cunt and you've fucked things up enough as it is."

This wanker had no business telling Sandor how he ought to compose himself for the sake of the little bird. It wasn't by choice that Sandor was cold to her now but by complete inability. He wanted to resume where they had left off, he _wanted _to want her, but for some damning reason he couldn't explain, he couldn't. And that was no concern of anyone's but his.

"Where do you get off telling me what I ought to do?" Sandor demanded.

"She's my charge. It's my business to protect her as much as it is to see that she's happy and the gods know she deserves it after everything."

"Grown fond of her, have you?" asked Sandor with an inkling of jealousy that gave him hope. If he could still feel that on behalf of her, he might be able to rekindle what was lost between them.

"Course I have. She's smart, she's beautiful, she's kind, and she doesn't mind dropping the courteous horseshit to speak to me on level ground. I like her, but I think she's dead-set on some burned-face fucker. Speaking of which, your ugly face needs to put those on." Bronn nodded to the new clothes Sandor had not yet seen fit to try out. "You're to be dressed and ready for me to take you outside and if you don't do as you're told, I'll force you into those clothes at knifepoint."

"You put your hands on me again and I'll fucking bite your fingers off at the knuckles."

"Shut your gob, you big fuck. I'm the one that had to dress you every damn day so don't get shy about it now. Get dressed and wait for me to come back and help you."

"What for?"

"The dead have waited long enough."

/ /

One pyre with two bodies atop it. Sandor looked long enough to gather that much before he had to look away. It had been enough of a struggle to make it down two flights of steep stairs, across the entire damn courtyard, and several yards out into the moor to where the pyre had been constructed; it was too much to ask of him to continue looking at the bodies that lay there.

But he had to see. He had to look his failure, his punishment in the face and know what he had done.

His feet were carrying him forward, bringing him closer to that which would undo him. He kept his eyes on the mucky ground, determined to not see anything before he had to. The side of the pyre came into view, stuffed and overflowing with straw and kindling. A hand draped over the side.

The last of what little strength he had managed for the walk out here left him. He could stand no longer and his knees hit the soft wood of the pyre before he sank down into the mud. Unsteady hands gripped at the edging as he shuddered and hacked like a man gagging from smoke inhalation. When the breath wouldn't come, when he would wake in the Black Cells and have a moment of utter fear, he turned to Mormont to ground him in reality, but what the fuck was he supposed to do now? Who else knew why he awoke shouting and sweating and could offer some form of comfort?

What a selfish bastard he was with a dead man lying before him and his thoughts only centering on how he would endure with this loss. A man was dead, stricken from a life cut short, and Sandor could only mourn the days to follow. How the tables had turned now. If only Mormont could see him, wondering what his life was worth in the aftermath of a friend's death. Had Sandor not admonished Mormont for that very thing, scolding him for giving into despair when he saw his Dragon Queen cut down? Sandor's harsh words had reached Mormont then, compelled him to continue on even with no hope. Mormont would demand the same of Sandor now—but Sandor was not made of the same type of valor as the knight.

It didn't matter that others could see him just now, those who were servants to House Stark who had come to pay their last respects. He had no dignity left after the last of it had been stripped away when Cersei had him burned in the throne room. Searching about blindly, he found Mormont's wrist and closed his fingers around it in a grip not even Gregor could break.

The ability to look upon the body and take in every gruesome detail of it would not yet come, so he turned his gaze to the side to watch the Lady of Winterfell lay her head upon her sister's chest and sob. A bandage covered the head wound that had dented the girl's skull but otherwise she looked unscathed, undeserving of being dead. Her lips were pulled tight in a frown that should not have been there, for it didn't suit her at all. She had done it much in life, but the few times Sandor had seen her smile, he had seen _more_, a part of her life she could never share with him, a time where she had had family and been happy. She could have had that once again, but she decided against it in assigning herself to him. In choosing him, she had chosen to abandon any hope of a life she once had.

She had always been small, but now she was positively dwarfed in death, reminiscent of the child he had taken from the Brotherhood. Just a girl, just a child—his. In a world where a parent burying their child was not uncommon, Sandor never would have believed that he would experience that same loss as a man who had sired a child. This girl was more his child than Eddard Stark's and yet he was the one who had to burn her.

Clutched in her hands across her chest was her sword—Needle, that damned sliver of a blade that he had caught her practicing with every bloody morning. It was right to burn her with it, but Sandor still had the urge to snatch it out of her dead hands and keep it as a reminder. But no, if anyone had the right, it was the little bird and she was not about to take her sister's most prized possession from her in death.

With a hard swallow, Sandor looked at last upon the body of the one knight who had upheld the honor of his title.

Mormont's preserved features did not prevent his face from sinking in with blood loss. Near on two and a half months (or so he was told) since the man's day of death and yet he might have only been a few hours cold and lifeless. Whatever had been done to him to keep the maggots from feasting on him, to keep the elements from withering away at him, it was something Sandor had to be grateful for. Mormont was waxen and looked so _old_ in death. His graying yellow hair had gone pale, almost white, something the maesters could not conserve even if the rest of him still resembled the man he had been in life. There was no sword upon his breast, but someone had placed in his lax grasp a wicked curved dagger inset with rubies and finished with a golden handle. It was the dagger Sandor had found him with before starting the last part of their flight from the city.

The knight had always had a scowl, rarely a smile, and never anything else but the permanent frown made him look so different from the man Sandor had known. It was an expression of emptiness from the body within and if Sandor could not stand to look at it, he couldn't imagine what it must mean to the wolf who had strained his neck to sniff at Mormont's corpse to make sense of this member of his pack that had gone from his life. The wolf's nose nudged at Mormont's ear with a whimper.

Sandor lifted his hand to Mormont's brow and covered most the man's face, unable to look at his only friend any longer. He might as well have been plunging his hand into a river of ice for how cold Mormont's skin was against his. And very soon it would be burning…

"It's time," said Bronn at his arm. "Up you get."

Now they would all see just how incapable Sandor was of facing the finality of committing the bodies to the flame. They would see Cersei's handiwork in all of its shattered glory.

A sound not even remotely resembling that of a human being came from Sandor's throat as the sellsword tried to make him stand, but as before, he refused to let go of Mormont's wrist. It would take the power of a hundred men to pry him away.

Or perhaps one little bird.

Ghost stood by him, ready to support him if need be, but Sandor turned to the little bird for his courage. She moved away from her sister's side and bent her knees to accommodate her position. She placed her arms around him, locking her hands into the waistline of his breeches to secure a firm hold on him since she couldn't completely wrap herself around him. One hand on her shoulder and the other on the pyre, Sandor leaned against her, feeling the curve of her breasts against the front of his cloak. For all to see, they were pressed against each other, though neither had any thought of consequence on their mind. He needed her just now, and she would undertake his burden alone, accept help from no one.

Surely he must be bruising her, crushing her with his weight, but she was planted firm and as he pushed himself off of his knees, she straightened up, hauling the rest of him with her until they both stood upright.

He let go of her fairly quickly here as an attendant to her house brought forth a torch and held it out suggestively to him. If his feet were not glued to the ground in a mixture of snow and mud, he would have tried to run, but he could only watch the dancing flames at the end of the torch. They taunted him, tempting him to complete the deed and knowing he wouldn't out of fear.

He couldn't do it. Ten feet away was even too close to the flames. Just _seeing_ the flicker of light was enough to drench him in cold sweat. He would never be able to light the pyre and keep his one promise to Mormont. It was a simple, harmless act, but it involved fire, as Ray had told him in his dreams, and for the life of him, he couldn't.

The little bird's hand took hold of the torch, stretching it out to arm's length and inviting him to share in grasping it, if only by the tip. If she did not already know, she at least suspected the battle waging on inside of him and this was her solution, even if it wasn't exactly ideal.

Sandor wrapped his fingers around the very bottom of the handle and together, they lowered it to just above the partition that separated Mormont from the girl. He hesitated, but she didn't and she released the torch first, leaving him to let it fall onto the pyre. Instant smoke, shy flickers of fire making their way across the surface of the pyre until they took to the kindling around and beneath the bodies and once that too was alight, the fire found its offerings.

The flames reached Mormont's neck and Sandor took half a step forward. There was nothing left to save him from, but Sandor still reacted with the urge to protect him. But this time, he couldn't.

The little bird steered him around to face her, hands on his shoulders. "Don't watch."

The crackling to his right told him that the fire had completely engulfed the bodies now and he couldn't help himself, but she pressed a hand to the burned side of his face, preventing him from seeing or tempting himself to watch. "No, Sandor, look at me. You look at me."

Words failed him and he could not force his body to respond to her, but he found her gaze and held it long as he listened to the fire consuming his child and his friend. Never had it been more imperative to ask for help than now, when he needed her to see him, to hear the words he couldn't tell her.

_Help me_, his eyes screamed at her. _I'm still here and I can't reach you. I'm right here and I can't fucking reach you._

And then to the gods, to Thoros and Beric Dondarrion's Lord of Light, if the fucker was listening: _Let me come back to her. If you bastards ever heard me, if you ever gave a fuck, hear me now. I want to come back._

It was a bonfire that burned beside him and he felt its blazing heat, resisting the urge to run, to scream because her hand was still on him.

"I have you," she told him, only him. "You won't burn."

But how he was burning from the inside, still burning…

/ /

He was not aware of the journey back to his room. He might have walked himself, he might have been carried, but it didn't matter. No sooner did he find himself in his own bed that he closed his eyes against the dying light stretching out across the glen, the sooner to drown out the images of flames burned into the insides of his eyelids.

He saw an ocean of pale blue, though he could not say which, set against a background of white. The air was still with nary a whisper of a breeze to speak of. Though the blank nothingness of the sky remained, he heard a seagull or two circling overhead in search of a nesting place. No ships docked at the harbor, no passerby walked on the empty, monochrome pathway behind him. His legs dangled over the edge of the wall he sat upon, though when he gazed over, he saw no reflection in the shimmering waters below. Then, someone came to sit beside him and he gave a start at the appearance of the man he had just put to the torch: Jorah Mormont.

It had been mere minutes ago, or perhaps hours, a day, a lifetime, that Sandor had seen him go up in flames. However long ago it had been, Sandor was sure it had happened, and yet the man beside him was so jarringly _real._

Neither of them spoke a word to each other: there was too much to say and not enough time to say it. Mormont looked much the same as Sandor had last seen him alive, but without the blood of his dying moments. He had fewer lines etched into his war-torn face, though the cut delivered by Euron Greyjoy was still there, now only a harsh scar. And yet, there was a youthfulness to be seen behind his eyes that looked skyward at the promise of good weather.

"That was a difficult thing you did today," said Mormont. "I didn't doubt your ability to follow through, but I feared for you when the time came. No one would have expected you to be able to confront it after what you were put through."

What was Sandor supposed to say in response to that? What did one say when a dead man praised them for facing their fear?

Mormont's skin was so full of life and warmth just now that Sandor could not be sure the man had ever been dead at all. Sandor found himself unable to look away, curious to a fault in whether he would find more of the wounds Mormont had died with.

"I knew what I was doing," said Mormont as if he had read Sandor's mind (and Sandor would not have put it past his newfound abilities as a member of the dead). He opened his tunic to reveal the stab wound in his belly, cleaned but still devastating. "That was my choice, not yours. The fault doesn't lie with you."

"If you knew and you still stepped in the way, you're the stupidest fucker that ever lived," said Sandor, averting his eyes. He could still smell the ash on the air as he watched Gregor shove his sword through Mormont's stomach, still hear Mormont's acquiescent sigh as his body curled around the blade. It was an image he had been trying to forget, but one that returned to him most often.

"I stepped in the way and you're alive," Mormont reasoned.

"If that's what you can call it—"

"You're with her."

"Not _with _her—"

"And you're home."

"Now, look here, you twat—"

"You laughed at me when I told you I would see you through to whatever end, do you remember? You didn't believe me, yet here you are."

"And I told you I'd be lighting your pyre and look what happened."

"I see my sacrifice hasn't given you a greater appreciation for life."

"You left me to carry your body through a burning city, you whoreson."

"I told you several times to leave me, but you refused. When I was gone, you still carried me. No one forced that on you; _that_ was your decision. There's no shame in it, either. You were taking a friend to his final resting place. I thank you for bringing me home, to the North."

Mormont's hand clapped down on Sandor's shoulder with heartrending fondness and Sandor could almost believe the touch was real, but he knew that when he woke, the warmth of the man's grasp would be gone as if it had never existed.

"I was glad to have known you for the short time that I did, but you need not dwell on me or thoughts of what might have been."

"I try not to but I've had a visit from Thoros and Beric and they were damn well positive that their fucking Lord of Light's the one who's been giving me those depressing thoughts, sending you all to me one at a time and making it hell on me when I'm trying to sleep."

"We don't plan it that way. We can only come when it's our time and hope we meet you here. There wasn't a queue to come to you, but I had to wait for my turn, after you burned my body."

Yes, they had burned Mormont's body as well as the girl's, so if Mormont was here…

Sandor glanced left and right along the walkway behind him, but saw no one.

"She's not coming," said Mormont, guessing for whom Sandor searched. "She could only go to one of you and she chose her sister. She hopes you'll understand and wished for me to tell you that you are not to blame yourself for her. It was her decision, as it was mine. We chose our fates. We did not die because of you, we died for you; there is a difference."

"There's no difference. You're both dead."

"Then you owe it to us to use the time we gave you."

Sandor did not want to have this discussion yet again with Mormont and as he was wont to do when he was unable to find common footing, he changed the subject.

"Did you find your queen here?"

As he lay dying in Sandor's arms, Mormont had insisted on following where the wolf pack led, as he had seen _her_ running with them, and there was only one woman Mormont would follow. So it came as a surprise when he heard Mormont's answer as the knight put a hand to his unbleeding wound. "Not yet. They tell me she hasn't come."

Sandor pulled at the skin on his face in exasperation. "If all you dead cunts can't look me in the eye and say something that makes some shroud of fucking sense, bugger off and leave me the hell alone."

This earned him a chuckle from Mormont, something Sandor would have punched him for at one time, but something he tolerated now. "How I will miss you, my friend. I regret not knowing you longer, then we might have had more time, but what little time we had was enough to bring you to where you need to be, don't you think?"

"Visit any time you want. The North's a fucking lonely place."

"This will be the only time. We cannot come to you more than once as it would not do to dwell on those no longer there and forget to live with those you still have."

Deciding to temporarily ignore this first bit of news, Sandor feigned ignorance on the subject as he always did with Mormont and asked, "And who would you be talking about? Who's waiting for me when I wake up?"

In an out-of-character roll of his eyes, Mormont regarded Sandor with annoyance. "Why did I die, Sandor?"

"Because you were thick enough to get stabbed—"

"No, not today, you bull-headed bastard. You aren't going to pretend with me. I died so you could go back to her and now you're with her and you won't let her in. When you wake, you're going to go to her because I didn't die so you could sulk about and mourn the dead and if Arya had come, she would have told you the same thing. She would tell you to not linger on what you could not prevent and stop shunning the woman who waits for you. You earned this, Sandor, now go reap your rewards."

"Think I'll stay a while yet," said Sandor, knowing that if he woke, he would never speak to this man again.

Once again reverting to that melancholy look, Mormont stood up, offering out his hand to Sandor who took it and stood up as well.

"You have to wake up. You don't belong here."

"I'll go when I'm good and ready," retorted Sandor.

"If you wait until you're ready, you'll never leave, and she isn't prepared to lose you again. You have such a life ahead of you yet, my friend, don't waste it on my account. This will be the only time I speak to you, until the last and when that day arrives, you will be ready."

The stillness of the seaside was punctured by the sound of disembodied bells. Mormont glanced to the sky again. "I have to go now. And so must you."

Sandor's fingers flexed in Mormont's, holding the handshake for longer than it should have gone on.

"Mormont—"

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Sandor, not anymore."

"If you see the girl, tell her…would you tell her…"

"I will, but she already knows. Take care of her family, my friend, they're yours now, too."

Time was running out. At any moment he could be pulled from this dream and then he would never again have the opportunity to tell this man what it meant to have had his friendship in the end, when he least wanted it and most needed it. Sandor was alive not from Mormont's sacrifice, but his willingness to befriend a man who shunned and was shunned by everyone else. Mormont broke through that barrier and his kindness was what prevented Sandor from ending it all.

"Words are hard to come by for you, I understand. But what you want to tell me, I already know as well," said Mormont with the suggestion of tears brimming in his eyes. "It was my honor, Sandor. And if you wish to honor me, give your first son my name."

A jest, something few and far between where Mormont was concerned, but as good of a send off as anything.

Sandor squeezed Mormont's hand one last time and then released him. No sooner had he let go that Mormont's body was engulfed in blue flames and a blinding light made Sandor look away until the world of ocean and whiteness dissolved into nothing.


	29. Chapter 29: A Storm of Spring

**SANDOR**

He had been asleep too long, long enough for some whoreson to come in and light a godsdamned fire this night, of all nights. The logs broke apart and spat out of the hearth, shooting out several feet and still quite a far way from his bed, but he was taking no chances. Terrified, he rolled off his bed and landed painfully on his knees, but he was up and running to his door, fatigue forgotten as he fled. He left it wide open and rounded the corner to the staircase that would lead to the level above, to her quarters. At the moment, he didn't care if she was there, asleep, or not. Feeling like a cowardly little shit, he pounded up the stairs, made a left at the top, and burst into his little bird's chambers without bothering to knock. Fortunately or not, he found them empty and thankfully, cold with no fire to speak of in her hearth.

The looking glass on her wardrobe showed his sunken face and sweat prickling out across his forehead. The expression on his face was the same he had seen on dozens of men just before his sword cut them open from hip to hip: it was incomprehensible terror. He went to the window and opened the shutters, letting in the draft of the storming night. The alcove sheltered the window from allowing rain to come in, no matter from which direction it fell, but Sandor still stuck his hand out into it to feel the calming coolness of the spring storm.

When his arm was properly drenched, he withdrew it and perched on the edge of the bed behind him, running his soaked sleeve over his face as a ward to fend off any fire that might want a taste of him.

It must have been nearing midnight, yet she was not here, which made him wonder what business was keeping her from her quarters. He knew she would return soon, but was undecided if he wanted her to catch him here as she had before. It was a place of peace and safety when he had nowhere else to go. Had he not sought her bedroom out when the Blackwater burned because he hoped she might come back? He had done the same now, fled the fire to come to her.

Just now, he wanted to get caught. He had nowhere else to be, so he would wait for her, for the calm she could bestow on him. After the way she had touched him in full view of her brother, the sellsword, the maester, and a good portion of servants to House Stark, she would not begrudge him this insistence on coming to her where no one would see. True, it had taken his own weakness to prompt her to touch him at all after days of abstinence, but she had done that on her own without fear of how it might look to those who witnessed it.

She was still trying and now, now he could appreciate it. She was actively seeking to reach him however she could and if his dreams were any indication, he was ready to respond. He had burned the dead and said goodbye to all who would come to him. He had made his peace with Jorah Mormont and the girl, wherever she was, accepted her fate, encouraged him to continue his fierce protectiveness of her sister.

It still ached to be in this world without them, but the longing he felt in this moment was not for the dead, but for her. The gods had given it back. Or maybe he had taken it back for himself when he said his farewells to the man who had given him this chance. He would always believe in his own determination over any divine intervention and the ability to release his grief in favor of using well the time lent to him by the dead was most certainly his doing and his doing alone.

Movement on the other side of the door announced her return. Her eyes were focused on her hands as she ambled in. She bolted her door behind her and turned on the spot, giving a small start at the sight of him looking over his shoulder at her, but it was not the first time he had come to her like this and so she was no novice to the situation. He realized too late that he might look a fearsome sight, dressed still in the clothes he had worn to the burning apart from his cloak while the thunder roiled and the lightning illuminated his slouched form.

"How did you get out of your bed?" she asked as a greeting.

"Might be that I walked," said Sandor. He had shamelessly sprinted here, in truth, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

She moved to the hearth, taking a striking stick and flint in hand and he shouted out at her in panic, "Don't!"

Dropping the fire starters as if she had been burned already, she saw him in a position to crawl over the bed, his body turned in her direction with his hand splayed out to try and stop her from across the room.

"What is it?"

She would not have forgotten that he disliked fires if not absolutely necessary, but she would not know the terror that gripped him at the mere mention of the word now. If he had disliked a well-lit room before, he was adamantly against it now.

"They lit one in my room and when I woke, it was spitting sparks. That's why I left. Don't light it, please…"

Even to his own ears, he sounded pitiful, like a boy clinging to his mother's skirts and begging for her to make a heavy thunderstorm stop.

She bent over to retrieve the stick and flint and placed them on the mantle, turning her back to the hearth and keeping her hands folded behind her. A stance of seniority, distancing herself from him. He didn't know what he had hoped to achieve in coming here, but it wasn't for her to look at him like he was a broken piece of pottery. He rotated back around to face the window where rain was splattering the shutters.

"Did she use fire on you?"

_You know she did. You saw her brand me._

What she didn't know was that he'd been strung up above an enormous fire like a pig roasting on a spit.

"Yes," he said with a small measure of shame.

"Tell me what she did to you. Tell me all of it."

He bordered on the verge of telling her to fuck off, but she was the one person he refused to say that to. She wasn't being inquisitive for the sake of sating her curiosity; she wanted to know because she wanted to feel his pain, even if she could do nothing to remedy what had already been done to him. Had he not asked the same thing of her when he demanded that she show him how Bolton had hurt her? He had been the first to see it, the only one to see it.

Catching her off guard, he spun around quickly to see that she had moved closer to him, but she pulled up short when he arched an eyebrow at her. She was holding an elbow with the opposite hand, now an act of uncertainty at his reaction. The last time they had been alone, he had screamed at her before she forced him to be calm through the storm inside of him. She was afraid to touch him now, but she still wanted to.

She wanted to know.

He told her every last detail from the start of his mornings with a torch shoved into his face to the pulling of his nails to the drowning and the whipping, the strangling, the _burning_. He told her how many times he had thought to ask Mormont to kill him and how many times he had resisted. He told her how the only reason he was alive to reveal this to her now was because of Mormont. It was more for her sake that he pretended to not notice that she had moved around to his side of the bed; he knew she needed to feel as if her presence did him some good.

It did, but she had to figure that out for herself. If she wanted to touch him, she had to make that decision on her own without his invitation.

"Why didn't Ser Jorah kill you when you finally asked him?" she questioned when he had finished his gruesome narration.

"Your guess is as good as mine. He was a stubborn arse, had it in his mind that he'd earn redemption if he could keep me alive past the war."

"Then I owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid."

"What for?" he asked quickly.

"For returning you to me. If you had been alone to face Cersei, you would not have survived. Daenerys was doing me a great service in sending him with you."

"You can't pay back a dead man for returning what isn't yours," said Sandor half-heartedly. He knew how to nudge her in the right direction to make her just angry enough to correct him, and she was quick to do so.

"Did I sound uncertain when I claimed you before the gates of King's Landing? Did you think I was lying when I told Cersei that you belonged to me?"

"I did."

She narrowed her eyes at him disapprovingly. "You're lying. You have never lied to me. You have been truthful to a fault, hurtful even in your delivery, but completely honest save for now—and that one time at the gate. You looked me in the eye even with the distance between us and called me a whore, a stupid little girl madly lusting after a man I could not have. And Cersei believed you. You bought yourself weeks of torture, bought us time to recalculate our battle strategies and enabled Arya to rescue you. But you lied when you said you did not want me. That I have known for years."

Now they came to it, the sum of their relationship, birthed into something more in these very halls. They had come full circle to arrive back at this complicated mess that was their perplexing association with each other. How did they stand now? When he was so broken, when she was so distant?

"You'd be stupid not to know," he said at last, deciding that there was no point in prolonging this charade that he did not still desire her. "I didn't try very hard to hide it, did I?"

"Except with Cersei. I pleaded for your life and she told me it wasn't enough and I watched them burn you. I saw you as helpless as you saw me while I remained Joffrey's prisoner, and I couldn't help you."

There was nothing she could have done for him then and she knew better than to blame herself for it, but she still did. It was easiest to take ownership of something unpreventable _because _it was unpreventable. Did he not fault himself for never having the balls to cut through the Kingsguard and the King himself to stop the mistreatment of her? Blame worked both ways.

"Aye, I heard you screaming for me, but I couldn't understand why. Our parting didn't end on a good note."

"That's why I told you not to leave in the first place, because I knew what they would do to you for abandoning Joffrey. Cersei didn't forgive or forget those who affront her family."

"That was her reasoning for torturing me, said it was my fault Joffrey was dead, as if I could have known the dumb cunt would have drank poisoned wine. But she didn't believe me, when I said those things to throw her off the scent. She didn't believe me for one fucking second. She knew, and that's why she tortured me; to get to you. Kept telling me she knew she'd have you beat when she showed you my corpse. She told me it'd break you to see me like that."

"And what did you tell her?"

"Told her you didn't break easily."

She was looking at him with pride now, eyes ever so slightly misted and he did not want to deal with a weepy mess at the moment so he quickly steered the topic off in a wildly different direction.

"Your sellsword told me you asked for my house."

"I did," she said, though Sandor detected something almost akin to disappointment in her tone.

"Why?"

"The noble houses of the North have been recorded for future generation by past generations and though houses have been born from others, those who have come from the North have stayed in the North, as goes the South, the East, the West. When we split from the Seven Kingdoms, we broke tradition, so I saw no reason not to take it in stride. Many of our houses are extinct: Karstark, Umber, Bolton…and Mormont. We are in need of fresh blood."

"And how's that to come to fruition? I'm the only one left of my house and I'm no lord," he said with a trace of warning. She had better not be fucking about to do what he thought she was…

"You are now. By my command as Queen in the North."

Sandor laughed, and it hurt dreadfully to do so. His little bird, queen of an entire country, he must have hit his head in addition to having his lungs almost opened up to be put on display to have entered a realm of _that _fantasy. Holding his chest, he emerged from his laughter to see that she was not smiling and his fit slowly subsided until he realized she was absolutely serious.

Now with the air of a powerful woman who commanded authority through gaze alone, she closed the distance between them and set her hand upon his right shoulder. "I name you Lord Sandor Clegane of House Clegane, bannerman to House Stark. I name you Head of the Queensguard, Lord Commander, and my sworn shield."

"And if I don't want it?" he challenged.

"You do. You would continue to do as you always have in protecting me with or without the titles, but it is high time you accepted them and gave them new meaning. The North's definition will defer greatly from that of the Six Kingdoms. The first Lord Commander of the Queensguard has already brought honor to his people but history does not recognize noble deeds unless they have a title to them. I am giving you that title because I want your name to be remembered in my kingdom's history."

Being a member of both parties were two things that could not occur simultaneously and Sandor felt like he had missed a crucial detail somewhere in the mix. "Aye, take no wife, father no children, only being a lord and being your sworn shield don't coincide with each other, little bird."

"In keeping with breaking tradition, you may marry who you wish and sire children of your own. You need not stand on formality for your house and make your bows and courtesies at court when you are summoned. You need not call a different castle than this your own, though I would gladly give you one. You need not become that which you loathe, but you are a lord now, so make the title your own and serve me well."

She wanted him. She wanted him here, had asked for him, and received him. His little bird no longer, now a she-wolf, his queen.

"I would kneel, but…" he gestured at his broken self as a whole.

"I will never ask you to kneel before me. You never would anyway. That's not you."

"You plan to make exceptions for me before the whole court?"

"It's my court; I can make exceptions for whomever I want. And one more thing. You are sworn protector of the last direwolf, Ghost, as my brother's parting command to you."

"Seven hells, why?"

"Because a direwolf has instincts that surpass our own and he wanted nothing to do with any of us when we brought you back. He scratched at your door until we let him in and would allow no one near you except for those who had returned from King's Landing with you. He entered the city for you, slept by your side as we returned home, and guarded you as well and as loyally as he ever guarded Jon. He chose you long ago, picked you out as a wolf, and now you are among your people. House Clegane belongs to House Stark, the dog belongs to the wolf and the wolf belongs to the dog. He is yours and mine and we are the last of the pack. The pack must stay together to survive."

By the gods, if she meant what he thought she did…

"That is the last order of business for tonight."

He recognized himself to be dismissed and with a sinking heart, he started to scoot off of the bed.

"I'd best go, then, see if the damn fire's gone out by now."

"No, wait, I was not asking you to leave," she said, quite suddenly anxious. "I meant—you must be exhausted and you should not be moving about any more than you already have. I promise you I'll not light the fire. Lie back, you may stay here for the night."

Sandor waited to see if she was joking and she damned well was not.

"That's not a good idea, little bird. You don't want rumors spreading of the Queen in the North taking one of her bannermen to bed."

"I am not taking you to bed. I am watching over my sworn shield as he has done for me and as he will do for me for years to come. Sleep, Sandor."

She sat down opposite him on the bed and placed her hand upon his shoulder, pulling with the gentlest pressure to make him lay down against the pillows. He could not prevent a shiver from going through him as he settled in with his face turned to the window, now feeling that he was on display for her scrutiny. Instantly, he could not keep still, fidgeting and wondering if she was watching him while he tried to sleep. He could not sleep with an audience, least of all _her_ as that audience.

"This isn't going to work, girl—" he said after only a few moments in which he tried to sit back up.

Then he felt her fingers at the base of his scalp, massaging into his skin. He did not recognize what happened next at the moment it did, but gradually, his ears stopped ringing with pounding blood for him to realize that she was humming. It was an unfamiliar tune, and not one of the South or the West. Its melody was heavy with age, but it had a powerful underlay to it, one that delved into his mind and opened it to beautiful scenery of a land untouched by time. With her fingers touching him so gingerly in one of his more sensitive areas and her gentle tune lulling him, easing him, he soon entered a dream for the first time in months, unencumbered by frightening images and dead companions.

It was a good dream, one of a ten year spring and new life breaking through winter's grasp. He saw an island, hidden in a cove with the high waves of the northern seas bashing against it, though it stood majestic and unyielding as a beacon to ships lost on the waters. The woods were still glistening with frost, the mountaintops still snowcapped, but not drowned in it. Spring had come in the form of nestlings chirping out in the early morning light for their mothers. A stronghold built in the same fashion as Winterfell was situated in a valley beside a wild-running river fed by a waterfall that took its source from the mountaintops. The banners that flew above the castle sported a green field with a striking bear as their sigil.

The name came to him as he woke. House Mormont. He had never seen Bear Island before, but he knew it was the very image that had come to him in his dream. He had heard Mormont describe it in enough detail to know it on sight and even though he had yet to see it with his own eyes, he yearned to. Such seclusion from the rest of the world, a castle hidden within the island, an island hidden amidst the sea. He would go there someday, someday soon, and return Jorah Mormont's ashes to his ancestral home, for he had redeemed himself in death and deserved to rest there.

Now thoroughly awake with melancholy thoughts of dead companions, Sandor gave an experimental stretch and attempted to swing his legs off of the right side of the bed, only the bed was bigger than he remembered. He used his elbow to prop himself up and almost choked on his own tongue at the sight before him. On the bed beside him with the space to fit half a man between them was Sansa Stark, still fully dressed but sleeping soundly, her face turned toward him and her hand still extended in his direction.

She had fallen asleep with her hand in his hair.

He needed to leave now while the castle was still quiet and he could return to his room unnoticed. She could tell her lords and ladies that she had tended to him in her chambers, but they would suspect differently no matter how she told it. He couldn't allow his wounds and fear of fire to be what brought the name whore to the Queen in the North before her reign began.

Sitting forward, he wondered how loudly the bed frame would creak with movement. He was in the process of testing it when—

"I hope you weren't about to steal back to your chambers when I gave you orders to rest."

She was awake now, watching him reproachfully.

"I rested, now I'm leaving."

"I'll not have my sworn shield prolong his injuries because he couldn't do as his queen commanded. Stay here, Sandor, your presence calms me."

"Stop talking like that," he snapped at her. "If you call me your friend, talk to me like one because what I'm hearing coming out of your mouth is the same shite I had to listen to for a third of my life from Tywin and Cersei Lannister."

"The last thing I want to do is hear mention of the Lannisters in my bed," said the little bird and the neglected muscle between his legs stirred. _In _her bed? If she could be so careful as to choose her words like a proper lady, she knew full well that what she had just said could be taken in more ways than one.

"Let me go, little bird. If I'm to be your vassal, my duty is to protect you, not just physically, but from any whispers that might be said about you and if anyone were to see me leaving your quarters, you can bet that it'll spread through the North like wildfire. I'll take it slow, you have my word."

"If you will not stay for your queen, stay for me," she said softly, longingly. "Just me."

If this was not a beacon to him, he would never know it if he saw it.

He dared to be bolder than he'd ever been with her. Rolling, he let his momentum carry him over and above her, perched on his palms and hovering just inches from her body. The insides of his thighs touched the outside of hers, giving her no hope of escaping, if that had been on her mind, but he could see that nothing was further from it than thoughts of fleeing from him. He could feel heat from her skin practically searing across his chest as she watched him, unafraid, but hesitant.

He had set in motion the events that led him to be here with her now, so close to achieving his only desire. He had chosen to come here and she had chosen to make him stay. Several times he had attempted to leave, but she gave him every indication that she wanted him to remain here. She had all but kissed him to seal him inside her chambers. He would have the truth from her now.

And if his eyes were to be believed, the truth was that she wanted this. There was no mistaking the eagerness in her face as he positioned himself above her. If he was so lucky, she had wanted him to do this very thing and was now working hard to contain her excitement.

He wanted this woman and gods, he would have her or it would be the end of him.

"You never told me to stop when I kissed you—both times. Drunken, greedy bastard that I was, you didn't push me away or tell me to stop. Why?"

"Because," she said uncertainly, "Even then, you could not be as bad as Ramsey or Littlefinger if you tried. They both took without asking, without consideration. Ramsey raped me and Littlefinger manipulated me. You kissed me and I was none the worse for it. Then and now, I have always had complete faith that you would not hurt me. But I could not let you have me as you wanted because the memories were far too fresh and painful."

He lowered himself, so that she could be sure to feel his breath on her face, smell the intensity on him, and know his intentions. His longing manhood brushed against her core and he saw her swallow. "And if I kissed you now, would you tell me to stop?"

A slow, steady breath. Eyes unblinking. "No."

He crashed his mouth down on hers, prying open her lips to devour her. She was sweet like honey and he had never been one much for sweetness but he had craved her since he first sampled a taste of her. When he twisted his tongue around hers to suck on it, he felt her mouth competing with his for dominance and growled his approval at the she-wolf taking what she wanted. He broke the kiss long enough to nibble lightly at the flesh along her neck, pulling the blood to the surface as he bit with a sharp but meaningful pressure there and she dug her fingers into his scalp, asking for more.

He could give her more. He let his pelvis skim against hers once and then began grinding himself against her, forward and back just enough for his imprisoned shaft to rub against her and create a heated friction in the areas where he wanted them to be joined. It was as close to fucking as he could get without actually being inside of her but he was caught in the motion, driving himself against her and catching her gape of longing with his mouth every time he made contact with her.

One of her arms draped around the back of his shoulders as her free hand clutched at his tunic to pull him closer, then slid down his chest, destined for where he so desperately wanted her to be. She changed tactics halfway through and hoisted herself off of the sheep down mattress while still holding onto him with one arm. The other took his and placed it on the lacing at her back which sealed her inside her dress. He worked through the laces, tearing quite a few in his haste, but if she didn't mind, neither did he. The top of her dress fell open at the throat and he clawed it down to expose the tops of her milky white breasts. His fist gripped her hair as he lowered her back down and his other hand went to start to undo her bodice. His fingers impatiently ripped through the laces he found there as well, but before he could finish, he let his hands curl around the curve of each breast, kneading at them in earnest. He worked his fingertips underneath the fabric to find one stiff nipple and rub it between his thumb and forefinger.

She whimpered, releasing him and bringing her hands to her chest to cover herself and he broke from her, mortified. He had gone too far, too fast. She lay gasping beneath him, breasts heaving from either fear or arousal and he couldn't identify which was more prominent. The words did not have to spill from her mouth to make her meaning clear: she wanted him to stop. And he had. He had to tell himself over a dozen times in the span of a few seconds that he did stop, unlike that time in his nightmares when he had dreamed of an alternate situation. He had become a manifestation of his brother then, but it was still his nightmare to have in a situation he might have been in. He had raped her in those damnable visions even after she pleaded with him not to.

_But you stopped this time. She never needed to utter a word. You know she wanted you to stop._

Beneath him, she turned her face away, clearly ashamed.

"You're alright, little bird, I'll not hurt you."

"I know. I _know_ you would never—but you shouldn't have to tell me that to make me believe it," she said underneath him. "I should let you go on, I _want _to let you, but the last time…the last time…"

"The last time a man was with you in this room he hurt you," Sandor finished. "You're afraid of me, even though you don't want to be."

"No, I don't want to be."

But she was, and it wounded him to hear it. Moving off of her, Sandor sat back and pulled her to him, cradling her head with his hands. And though she had just admitted to her fear of not necessarily him, but men altogether, she snaked her arms around him and buried her face against his chest. She needed to feel him existing against her without him seeking to touch her back and he let her. She had been so patient with him when he was undeserving of it; the least he could do was return the favor for however long she needed.

After a time, she tilted her head back and told him again, "I don't want to be afraid of you."

"Then don't be. Do what you will with me; I won't move against you, and I won't force you. Whatever happens will happen because you wanted it to. I'll stay fucking still for as long as you want me to until you're ready."

"But that's not what you want."

Sandor lowered his hand to just above her breast, asking for permission which she gave in a slow nod. He caressed it with the delicacy of handling glass, afraid to do more for fear of hurting her or worse, before moving down her body to the sweet spot between her legs. He stroked her through her dress and could feel the heat and dampness that was there because of him.

"Gods, girl, you have me in your bed and you're worried about what _I _want? You know what the fuck I want. It's always been you: I've wanted to fuck you since I first laid eyes on you but I haven't because that wasn't what _you _wanted. To not become my brother, I had to do everything he wouldn't and in your case, it was wait. I want this and want you so badly my cock's raged on the verge of pain whenever I'm in the same room as you. I _want _you."

He pressed down upon her core, searching through the fabric of her dress for the sensitive nub that would open her arousal completely to him. Crude though it was to do such a thing through her many layers instead of rucking up her skirts and finding it with bare skin to bare skin, he dared not expose her until she asked him to. He knew the consequences of going too far without her approval. When he found her most intimate pleasure spot and began to rub his thumb against her, her lips parted in a soft exhale. Grinning at her, he set her back down, came onto all fours, and lowered himself to kiss her again and whisper against her lips, "You're already so wet for me. So _wet_," he breathed, burning with the ache and the need to see her beneath her clothes and see how he affected her so.

She blushed crimson at the vulgarity of his words, but it only made his grin broaden. He took her hand and guided it to the firmness of his manhood pressed between them and watched her eyes widen, her pupils dilate as her fingers touched the head. Here he released her hand and let it continue its own exploration as she allowed herself to touch him and feel the length, the hardness of him. He slanted her chin upward to meet him, touching his lips against hers, but not completely pressing them to her, giving him the ability to still speak against her.

"That's for you, little bird. Rock hard for _you_." He felt her gasp of surprise against his lips that he had remembered that, those drunken words he had spoken to her when he had first invited himself into close proximity with her. Yes, he remembered. He had clung to anything and everything that had ever given him cause to feel alive during those agonizing hours spent in his cell deep beneath the Red Keep and the memory had come to him.

"You want me as much as I want you, so take me," he told her. "I'll go no further than kissing you until you're ready. I know what happened in this room and I know that a man has never taken you in the way you want and deserve to be taken but I don't trust myself to be that careful with you if you give me free reign, so don't give it to me. Make this decision for yourself."

Careful so as not to upset his wounds, he lowered himself onto his back, giving her the decision on how to proceed. If she wanted it, she could have it, but if she let him go this far and rejected him now, he would throw himself out of her window and hope the fall killed him. Women could be so cruel, yet she never had been intentionally and she had kissed him back this time, actively sought out more of him on her own. She wouldn't do that just to deny him now.

"Help me undress," she said quietly, turning slightly to have him undo the last of the laces he hadn't yet managed to rip. His fingers worked deftly to free her from her dress, eager to get at what was beneath but forcing himself to go slow for fear that he might push her too far once again. When he reached the bottom of the do-ups, she let the padded shoulders fall forward and then nimbly stepped out of the whole thing.

Tossing it aside, she sat beside him in naught but her bodice, her shift and her smallclothes and he recalled the smallest glimpse of her breast that he had seen when Joffrey ordered her stripped before the court. She had covered herself to the best of her ability, clutching the ruined front of her dress to her and waiting for the king to order the rest of it be torn away. He remembered being unable to look away but then her tears came harder and he couldn't bear to watch, knowing that there was nothing he could possibly do to help her. His sword hand had shaken so hard that he had to clutch it to his side to silence the rattling of his greaves. He swore that if Trant touched her again, if she was exposed any further, he would intervene, but the Imp had called Joffrey's fun to a halt and all Sandor could do was cover her bare shoulders even though he had wanted to carry her from the room.

He had not felt arousal at that small peek of her blossoming body, but gods, how he ached for her now. She had never been the one at the helm when with another man. Ramsay, perhaps Littlefinger, but no more than that, she had been taken against her will, never in charge. She might have been taken in this very bed and to bring another man to it now, she was revisiting the last time a man had fucked her. But she didn't want to be fucked or fuck; she wanted to make love and that was something Sandor was incapable of giving her. Making love required an establishment of love to begin with and Sandor couldn't. He was empty of it, never having known the word despite the many times the dead had told him otherwise in his dreams.

But what did they know of his heart, of what remained of it?

Her fingers reached over and lay upon his waist and he felt his erection jolt with so much power that he was afraid his breeches might split open. He didn't move for fear that he would scare her away if he did anything she didn't ask for even though he wanted to grab her, push her beneath him, and sheath himself in her as deeply as she could take him. Never had it been more imperative that he be gentle and mind his strength than in this moment.

Her eyes flickered up to his, gauging him for a response. She was testing him to see if he would break his restraint or if he could wait for her to be ready. It was asking the world of him. He could slaughter her enemies for days without tiring but asking him to wait, to refrain from touching her was the largest task he had undertaken in his life.

Light fingertips trailed up his chest, whispering over his bandages and resting at the one bit of binding that sealed his tunic at his neck. She wrapped her finger in one of the ties and pulled, freeing the knot. Here she paused, asking him in a simple look to take the next step. She was asking him as much as he asked her. Truly, a gentle heart and he ached to know how roughly she had been handled her first time, to ensure that he never went that far. He had wanted to do to her the very thing Ramsay had done, but by the time he had planned to, she would have wanted it, as he prayed to the Seven that she wanted now.

Interpreting her gaze, he slowly lifted his arms over his head, upright in the air and almost had to shout at his cock to be still as she climbed further up the bed to sit beside him and place her hands on the hem of his tunic. She didn't prolong her movements, but they were still careful and calculated. He felt the soft material leaving his hips, his chest, rubbing against the underside of his arms. It passed over his head, blinding him to her for all of two seconds and then it came free of his arms. Balling it up, she let that fall away to the floor to join her dress.

Her chest expanded with a quick, uncertain breath at the sight of his torso, covered in bandages but very much belonging to an enormous man. This was as much of him as she had seen before, but never under such circumstances. She touched the course tufts of chest hair that poked out from between his wrappings and he lowered his arms to his sides to grasp the sheet beneath him in an effort to control his arousal. It had a mind of its own now, and he knew she could sense that, but she didn't look below his waist.

Eyes on his, full of controlled excitement, she undid each lace of her bodice, failing to conceal a smirk as she saw his gaze follow her fingers down the length of her body, drinking her in. He could look all he wanted, but he wanted to _touch _her and he couldn't. She was much quicker in releasing herself of her garments than he was and she shook herself out of the restraining piece of clothing.

His skin prickled at her touch as she ran her fingers down his waist to his hip and then gave a slight pressure, asking him to roll away from her. Now thoroughly confused and slightly irritated since this would in no way lead to fucking, he remembered his vow to do as she wished and though it wasn't a gateway to the sweet spot between her legs, it wasn't an open rejection of him either. He rolled again, grunting slightly at the movement and when he had come to rest completely on his side, he felt her fingertips tracing his spine straight down to the burned flesh in the small of his back. They came to a halt here, running along each individual line of the brand mark.

Something warm and wet landed on his bare skin and he couldn't help himself. He let himself fall onto his back and looked up into the tear-stricken face of his little bird. She might as well have just seen her father beheaded again; the look was the same.

_Seven hells, what now_?

"I'm sorry," she whispered, dabbing at her eyes as if humiliated by her tears. "I'm so sorry for what she did to you. You fear fire more than anything and she gave it to you over and over and I couldn't help you."

By the gods, she was too perfect for this world. He lay at her mercy, half naked and battle torn, but she still felt the need to apologize for what had been done to him despite the fact that it was his decision to leave Winterfell against her wishes in the first place. She had done all in her power to protect him and still saw his wounds, his suffering as a fault of her own.

How he wanted to touch her now but doing so when she was distraught would most likely ruin any chance he might still have of bedding her this night, so he offered out his hand and she grasped at it, pressing the cracked skin of his knuckles to her lips.

"No, little bird. I went there on my own. That was my choice and the bitch never would have handed me over even if you'd handed her the North on a silver platter because I abandoned my post, as you said. Nothing that's happened to me falls on you. I made it that way so no one suffered for my decisions but me."

"I'd never heard you scream before," she said. "I don't ever want to hear it again. I can't stand hearing the pain from the people I care for."

_Still can't say it outright, can you? Can't say the complete truth because you're scared of it, my little bird._

"You won't. You'll have me bound head to foot in fucking chains if I try to leave again, won't you?" he said, brushing at the tear trails on her cheeks with his thumb.

That weaseled a smile out of her and he had hope that the night was not lost just yet.

Now she had a choice, to stop altogether or to continue and if she did, she had the additional choice of undressing him first or herself. Find herself naked or make him so; there was power in both. She needed that option, to be able to say no and find comfort in the knowledge that he would not force himself upon her. It would shatter him, but he would do as she willed and never against it.

Again, she decided to bloody test him as she crossed her arms over her chest, taking a fistful of her shift in each hand and lifting upright. He couldn't find breath as the shift came up over her breasts, exposing nearly all of her snow-kissed skin, dotted with the smallest number of freckles. She was not well endowed; her breasts were small and soft like the rest of her. Coming up onto her knees, she slid her small clothes down and then removed herself from them one leg at a time, all the while watching him, daring him.

That was the last bit of teasing his manhood could handle. He twitched with the effort of holding himself together and exhaled, biting into his lip in the hopes that he could muffle the moan of longing about to come forth.

This didn't frighten her. If anything, she seemed boldened by it, for she lay her hand upon his thigh, dangerously close to the beast between his legs but deliberately denying him that pleasure of feeling her hands on him in the spot he most desired. With movements requiring the delicacy to handle a newborn babe, she took the two end strands to the cords on his breeches and undid the knot there.

_Gods, woman._

She was most definitely waiting to see if he would cave in to his desire or if he had the restraint to wait for her. She gave one small tug and flicked her eyes up to his, then another, over and over until he felt that his crotch might be in danger of imploding in on itself if it didn't receive the reward it came for.

Her hand rested upon the fabric above his cock and he surged against her. She wrapped her fingers around as much of him as she could, eliciting a deep, hungry moan from him that seemed to please her, though not as much as his determination to go at her pace.

With one hand on either hip, she raised her eyebrows in suggestion that he lift himself to assist her in sliding his breeches down. He dug his heels into the fur pelt to support his hips and she pulled, so painstakingly slowly. His monster of a manhood sprang free from its cloth prison and he breathed a small sigh of relief at the loss of restriction. She released his breeches when they reached his ankles and he kicked them off, knowing what came next and anticipating it to the point where his chest ached for it.

But her courage abandoned her here and he saw her retreat just a fraction of an inch. He was so close now, _they _were so close that he couldn't keep himself in check any longer. She had done all up to this point but what she needed now was assurance from him that she was not in danger and that as far as they had come, she could still back out and seven hells, how he hoped she wouldn't.

He took her hand, not quickly, but with an intensity that she couldn't ignore. She cast her eyes down at the mattress between them. He might have broken her trust just now after years of building it up. He might have shattered it in trying to comfort her when she had asked for him not to touch her until she was ready and she obviously wasn't but bugger him if he didn't try.

"Look at me," he said, struggling to make his gruff voice gentle for her. "This is you, little bird. You don't have to keep going. You don't have to do anything to make me happy. This is all you and what _you _want."

Apparently she hadn't considered any of this in those terms until now. Her shoulders relaxed and she met his gaze, asking one last time if he would follow her instead of leading. He nodded once.

_You hurt because you don't deserve her but that doesn't stop you from wanting her. And you tell yourself that you want to fuck her because that's all you know how to do but to even consider what she wants is what makes you different than all the men who have wanted her. I don't know what it is to look a woman in the eye and tell her I love her and see that same love returned, but I would know it if I did._

Jorah Mormont didn't know Sandor long, but he did know him well. In the weeks they had spent in darkness, their only solace the sound of the other's voice, he had come to know Sandor better than perhaps the little bird or the girl or even his own brother. And he had been absolutely right.

The little bird drew herself up to full height on her knees, seeing him splayed out for her and he asked her with the forwardness only he could get away with in a gasp of desperation, "Do you want me, Sansa Stark?" He knew it, had known it for so long, but so needed to hear her say it to remind him that he had not dreamt it, that he was alive to hear it from her own lips.

"Yes, I want you, so badly," she said sturdily and with a look he likened to insatiability. He could have died right then and not have known it from absolute joy. Though he would not die just yet, he would hear her words until whichever god of death took him. _Yes, I want you_. And she would have him.

"But I have never been taken by a man who wanted me to take him in return," she continued. "I have never been filled with a man's passion or his love, only his rage and his sadism. I have never had love made to me."

She wanted him to say it and the truth of the matter hit him hard, almost choking him as the words came out.

"Neither have I."

Her slender leg draped over his outer thigh and she came down to rest between his cock and his knees. This was it. This was her last chance and most likely his. If she backed out now, there would be no salvaging the hurt he felt and the shame she did.

"I—I don't know how to please a man anymore than I know how to make love to him," she admitted, kneading her fingers across his chest, _playing _with him. "But I can learn. Please, show me how."

He certainly fucking would.

The thunder made the shutters tremble in place and the rain grew to a din, sounding like applause upon the rooftops. Any remaining snow would be washed away now to make way for spring. But most importantly, the sound of spring coming into its own would drown out the sound of Sandor making Sansa Stark his own.

He raised his hands to her hips, guiding her to straddle him just above his manhood. He straightened it with one hand until the tip rubbed against her nether lips, coating it in the wetness of her quim and she seized above him. He was surely imagining how wet she was, how ready for him her body was when he had done nothing to prepare her. She had never enjoyed this act before or had cause to, but she was so eager for him and he took enormous pride in knowing that he was the first man to do that to her.

Resting a hand on each of his shoulders to anchor herself, she commanded his full focus and with the burning of a woman come alive, she lowered herself onto him, sheathing him within her. By the pained exhale she emitted and the way her eyebrows pulled together, he knew that his size expanded her in such a way that she had never been stretched before. She was exquisitely tight, milking him on her descent as she took him completely until her arse made contact with his aching balls. As his cock nudged against the entrance to her womb, she bucked forward onto him in surprise with her breasts pressed against his chest, her face hovering a mere inch or two above his.

At long last, at long fucking last, he was inside of her. He and his little bird were joined and he would never forget this incredible feeling of existing within her. This was a reality he had only dared dream of, never expecting that it might come into subsistence. Years of waiting, longing, and knowing he could not have her, only to find that she desired him.

She gave herself no time to adjust to his size, looking to him for direction in earnest with the need—to please him.

Closing the distance between them, he chewed at her lower lip, moving his hands to her sides and sliding his thumbs over the delicate skin he found there. "Ride me," he instructed, moving her hips to a rhythm that she could sustain and that he found pleasurable. She clutched the headboard to help prop herself up as she moved herself over and around him. Her breasts hung over into his face and he couldn't resist the urge to taste one, to suckle her and worship her. His mouth's ministrations caused a needy pant to come from her throat, a sound that almost sent him over the edge before they'd begun.

She intertwined her fingers with his and brought his hands to her breasts, urging him to touch them. His thumbs ran over the raised flesh of her nipples and he saw her shiver as gooseflesh erupted down her body. Keeping one hand at her breast, he reached the other between them and touched her at her nether lips, seeking out the fleshy pearl that would bring her pleasure once again. When he stroked her, she threw back her head and let out a breathy sigh.

He would go through it all, kiss the fire of his childhood and endure the torture at his brother's hands if it would lead him to this outcome every time. His little bird, his woman, she chose him this night and fucking hells, he loved it.

Releasing the headboard, she lowered herself to him, taking a fistful of his chest hair and massaging her fingertips into him as her other hand went to the scarred flesh on his cheek and caressed him. From this new position, she rocked herself on him, driving her pelvis into his and squeezing her inner muscles to clench around his cock. Her movements were too much and he let out a desperate groan, needing more. He needed more of her. She was grinding into him now with her own need and one particular clamp on him unearthed a sound of complete abandon from his throat.

She stopped, staring down at him with something he could only liken to bliss on her face. She was giving him permission to handle her how he wanted. It was his turn.

He cradled her back with his arm and rolled them over, trapping her beneath him. He had slid out as he pinned her but her ankles rose up off of the mattress, locking onto his arse and she told him without words that she wanted him to take her hard. It was something he had wanted to do to her but was hesitant to follow through on because his size would surely hurt her more if he became too rough with her. He _wanted_ to take her hard, but he figured she did not know what she was asking of him.

Fingers almost digging into either side of his neck, she brought him close to her so he could read her clearly and see that she knew exactly what she was asking of him.

He slammed himself into her and her mouth dropped open with a startled cry. He repeatedly drew out completely and then shoved every last inch of himself into her, shaking the entire bed with each thrust. Her breasts moved in time with him and she gripped his forearms with her fingernails making indents in his skin, pulling him to her until she was flush against him.

What a magnificent woman to be able to take him in his entirety every time. He had not often taken pride in his size because he knew it hurt the few women he had been with. They liked it big and thick, but he was too large for them and that had been what he feared the most with his little bird. He feared that if he pushed himself in too far, he would nudge against her too harshly and she would ask him to stop and withdraw. The other women had asked him to stop when he grew too frenzied, meaning his fucking could only ever be half-fulfilled as he half-entered them, but she did not even attempt to stop him, all but jamming him inside of her as deep as he could go on every thrust. He was truly the perfect fit for her. He was meant to be inside of this goddess.

The rain lashed at her window, the lightning turning the night to day outside and he felt safe enough to let out one solid gasp of elation.

She began mewling, begging him for more and he obliged, loosening a moan every time he buried himself to the hilt in her. Then she said his name, only his name, and he was lost to her. Her grip on him pained him and he knew she was ready. She cried out, shattering around him and he watched her mouth drop open in ecstasy. He claimed her lips, wanting to taste her and have her in every way as her first climactic encounter washed over her. He felt her trembling around him, both with her body and her inner muscles and he lowered his head to her neck to kiss her and ease her into that sweet release. On the last surges of her peak, she brought his shoulder to her mouth and sucked on his skin hard, gnawing at him to avoid biting her tongue in half.

Then she collapsed back on the bed, spent. Her arms dropped away from him, exposing her breasts fully as if she were an offering to him. The time to find his own completion had come. A few short, shallow thrusts into her and he was ready to work himself into the last hurdle, but he needed her closer to him. He wanted her clinging to him, wrapped around him, completely surrounding him as he found his release.

Taking one arm at a time, he secured her upper body around him. She took her cues from him and cocooned him with her lower body as well, crossing her ankles over the small of his back to anchor herself. "Hold on to me," he advised. She nodded and lifted herself to him, nestling her face in the crook of his neck to await his final stretch.

He raised himself just enough to not be pressing down on her, palms positioned on either side of her, and then rammed into her at full speed, listening to the sound of the front of his thighs slapping against her. His cockhead punched against her womb, but she made no outcry, only encouraging him to finish.

He felt his shaft shuddering, loosening. It was now time to withdraw from her, for as consumed as he was with all of her in this moment, reason did not evade him and he knew that it would not do to have the Queen in the North carrying a bastard child in her belly (though Sandor's heart grew light in the thought that it would have been _his _child). He made to leave her sopping wet folds but she clung tightly to him, locking her limbs around him, and trapping him against her. Once more he tried to withdraw, but she hugged him with her knees and took his face in both hands, pushing aside his hair so she could see him clearly.

"No," she said firmly. "I will have all of you, Sandor Clegane."

She wanted him, wanted every part of him, including his offering, and he could hold himself back no longer.

His seed spilled hot and deep inside of her, filling what little room there was left in her cavern. A quivering, sobbing sound erupted from his throat as his manhood jerked into her of its own accord with the final spasms of his completion. He buried his face against the cold sweat of her collarbone, his shoulders shuddering with exertion and overwhelming relief that a woman, _this_ woman had accepted him and asked for his seed.

A bold line of white that might have been the storm outside or his own scorching effort blinded him in the shattering finality of his release. His muscles weakened with the strain of holding himself up off of her. He was pressed against her, feeling her heart thud against his chest and he reveled in it for a time before he realized he must be crushing her. He propped himself up on his forearms to see tears in her eyes once more but he couldn't even begin to chastise himself when she drew herself up to kiss him. She sucked on his tongue and he wondered if it would be too soon to have his manhood liven again when she released her grip on his mouth, hanging on to him with less than an inch between them.

Outside, the rain continued, though the storm had quieted.

"You love me," she said.

No question, no command, just a fact, but she needed to hear his response. She spoke the truth to him, unafraid of the consequences and he could only do as he had ever done: tell her the truth in return.

"Aye, little bird, that I do."


	30. Chapter 30: Wolves in the North

**I've had some health problems that have put me in and out of the doctor and in some serious need of medical help the past few weeks. And then other nonsense happened. And I wanted to do this chapter justice, not just put something out for the hell of it. Sorry for the wait, but I figured since I basically uploaded the entire story within a month, waiting between the last few chapters wouldn't kill anyone. Sorry if it did. One more chapter after this, my friends.**

**/ /**

**SANSA**

The storm still had not worn itself out by morning as rain continued to pelt her window but even with the absence of fire in the hearth, her bed was warm. She was incredibly tender and somewhat sore between her legs, but it was an exquisite feeling she would not trade for anything. It was worthwhile pain, the kind that invigorated her and strengthened her with how it was won, not the kind that had left her feeling shamed. She tried to stay within the memory of the night before, tried to capture that sensation of having him inside of her and the incredible, breathtaking, shattering feel of her first-ever release.

But more than anything, she had heard him admit to his love for her and if it had nearly brought her to tears then, it was just as sweet in recollection. After, she had refused to leave him even for a second, allowing the stickiness of his seed to dribble onto her sheets and not caring that she would need to hide it when Eira came to change them. He had tried to stay awake for her, one hand playing with her hair while the other cupped her side to his chest, but sleep had found them both not soon after.

Sandor Clegane still lay abed now, naked as his nameday apart from the covers adorning his lower half. He was dead to the world, sleeping soundly and silently in what Sansa expected was his first peaceful sleep in months, perhaps years. She could smell him on her, smell the musk of their coupling and the evidence of his presence he had left within her.

This reality was hers. This man in her bed was hers, and she could have him every day, every hour for as long as she desired. She was absolutely certain that for however many days that remained of her life, she would want him for every single one. She had fought for him in body and soul and given every last piece of herself to asking that the gods give him back to her. Now that she had him, she would let no one else take him from her.

"M'lady Sansa!"

Over the sound of heavy rainfall, it was no small wonder why she had not heard the incessant pounding before, but now that she was fully awake, Sansa heard her handmaiden calling to her from the other side of the door, accompanied by another.

"Lady Sansa, if you're in there, you'd best open the door or you'll find me knocking it over in five seconds' time," came Bronn's voice.

Sansa clutched one of the furs to her, making certain that she was well covered as she hurriedly padded to the door and unbolted it, cracking it open enough to see outside but to not allow Bronn to see in. Beside him, Eira was holding a breakfast tray and looking quite pale with worry.

"What is it?" asked Sansa.

"M'lady, I had knocked several times earlier with no answer and you never lock your door. I thought perhaps you were taken ill or worse and I ran for Ser Bronn," said the young woman fearfully.

"I am quite alright, Eira, there is no need to worry. I have no appetite this morning, so you may eat this spread in your room. I won't have need of you until this evening."

Bronn was looking at her in that penetrative way that suggested he knew there was more to the story than what her words supplied and being taller than her, he was able to see over her head into the room beyond. There was no way to stop him or block him and so Sansa had to allow it to happen, not at all appreciating the way he poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek as if holding back some witty remark.

"Go on, girl, you've been dismissed," he told Eira, shooing her along, and once the corridor was empty, he leaned an arm against the doorframe all-knowingly.

"No, don't look at me like that," said Sansa reproachfully.

"It's about fuckin' time," he said wryly.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," said Sansa, attempting to shut the door, but he wedged the toe of his boot in front of it to stop her.

"Don't play coy with me, of all people," he whispered. "I'm the one who kept telling you to all but rip his clothes off and have a go at 'im."

"I trust you to be discreet about whatever it is you think you saw here, Ser Bronn."

"I'll see to it that you're not disturbed but as your sworn shield, charged with protecting your body, inside and out as it were, it's my duty to ask you if I should smuggle up something that would counter any _irresponsible_ acts from last night?"

Perhaps she was still drunk on her elation from the night before, but Sansa had trouble deciphering his words at this hour and her expression must have told him that she didn't understand him.

"Moon tea, girl," sighed Bronn as if she were being daft on purpose. "Do you need it?"

Sansa held a hand to her stomach, flat as ever, scarred as ever, but possibly even now carrying the seed of the man in the bed behind her. She had let him spill within her, not caring about the outcome, welcoming it, possibly even hoping for it. Did she feel the same way upon waking? Did she still want to accept that possibility of a bastard child growing within her womb? _His_ child?

Bronn pushed the door open just a smidgen more to step closer and ask this time with sincerity, "Do you need it? Tell me, Sansa, I'm not here to judge you, only help."

Sansa patted his chest in a gesture of gratitude. "I don't need it, but thank you, and not just for your offer."

Bowing himself out, Bronn left her to bolt the door again to prevent unwelcome intruders. She hurried back to the bed now that her bare feet were starting to freeze on the cold stone floor and wriggled under the many layers of furs and blankets, laying sideways to face the empty hearth. Then she felt him shift behind her, reaching for her beneath the covers and pulling her back flush to him. She did not know if he was awake, but the continuation of his deep, languid breathing led her to assume so. With the duties of the day held at bay simply because she wanted to keep them so, she allowed herself to drift with the comfortable weight of his arm across her bare skin and was nearing entering sleep again when he spoke.

"Will he keep his mouth shut?"

She didn't know what she expected him to say upon waking in her bed following their first night together, but it certainly wasn't that.

"He will say nothing until I tell him to," Sansa assured him.

He turned her toward him, rotating her body to press against his. "He asked you if you wanted to take precautions."

"He did."

"You didn't."

"I won't because I don't want to."

He had no reason to fear what he had done to her the night prior, but she noted the uncertainty he betrayed for a fraction of a second. He feared what a babe might do to her body, even if he did secretly long for her to bear him a child—_their _child. It was an impossible future for a man of a formerly minor house but under House Clegane's new claim in the North, he was no minor lord. He was the greatest of the houses that served her and if she wanted his child, that was her decision alone.

"My mother bore five children with no complications. If your seed takes hold and I grow great with child, I will have no trouble bearing it. The Tully lines prosper as plentiful as the trout on our sigil. And the Starks strengthen their pack by adding to it."

"But if it's mine," he struggled to say the words. _If _it was his. He had never had a hope of siring a child with any whore for no woman would allow him to do such a thing, but that she had chosen to accept the possibility was frightening for him. He was thinking of her reputation, of the Queen in the North carrying a bastard in her belly and the entire court suspecting what had gone on behind closed doors. "If it's mine, it won't be a wolf, will it? It'll be a Snow."

"It will be what I decide it will be. But it might not even come to that," she said suddenly, realizing with growing dread that her willingness to be a mother just hours after laying with a man might be for naught. "After the damage I inflicted upon myself, I might not…I might not be fit to bear children, as much as I might want to."

The thought had not occurred to her until now that she had done irreversible damage to herself to prevent Ramsay's seed from taking hold. She had not gone to Maester Wolkan to assess herself but she feared now what conclusion he might draw if she did. Would he find that she had done such harm to her body that her womb could never support a child? Was she barren? Was she unable to give Sandor a child when she so desperately wanted one to bind him to her and claim him for all the North to see? Would he still want her if she was unable to give him that?

"If I'm unable to give you a child—" she began, but Sandor sat up and pulled her onto his lap. She felt a small blush creeping up between her breasts that she sat so exposed upon him with a half-aroused manhood beneath her. Even seated upon him in such a way, she was not taller than him.

"Don't talk about that like I'm in demand for an heir," he told her sternly. "It's not your fault if you can't, either. You can't give me what isn't mine to ask. You don't _owe_ me anything, little bird, least of all a bastard babe."

"But I want a child," Sansa admitted. "I want _yours_."

"One night with me and you decide that you're ready for motherhood already?" he asked mockingly, but with an undertone of surprise. "When you'd never been with a man you enjoyed before? You're not _ready_."

Judging by the cloudy expression on his face, neither was he. Sansa was so in love with the idea of birthing this child for him, to demonstrate her full commitment to him, but she had not considered that he was not the fathering type. His love was hard-earned and not willingly given, even if it was to be his child. She could see that he was somewhat open to the idea of rearing with her, but he was more frightened of it than she was. As he had said, they had spent but one night together and far too little time to decide if it was right or indeed safe for them to attempt to conceive.

"But if I could," Sansa pried, "If it were possible, would you accept the role of the father? Do _you_ want a child, Sandor?"

"It's not about what I want, never has been. I'm not the one who would have to squeeze the babe out, only the one who would squirt it into your belly and I've had you for all of ten hours at best to myself. You can't ask me so soon after to father your children. I'm not a king and I'm not demanding or needing an heir to claim what's not mine. I'm just a man in a queen's bed—"

"A lord," Sansa corrected.

"But I don't _need_ a child. I don't need for much but what I want…what I want is for you to do what's safest and right now, it's not giving birth. Your body isn't ready and you—" he ran his hands up the curves of her hips, moulding his hands into the soft flesh of her breasts, "—you are drunk on lust that made you hold me prisoner here when I tried to go back to my quarters last night."

"Those are no longer your quarters. Your bed is mine in the Queen's chambers and I'll not have you stealing into it like a common thief. If you lie with me, let it be in _our _bed," she said intrepidly, heart racing at the prospect of what she was about to tell him. There was no need to contemplate it; she knew that she would propose this to him the second she felt him slide into her, even before. When he had stayed his hand and resisted touching her and looked upon her with such adoration and commitment, she knew what she would ask of him, though she did not expect to ask it so soon.

"Am I to be the Queen's mistress?" asked Sandor. "The man she takes to bed when it pleases her?"

"Even if it were so, my subjects would accept it, but I plan to make traditions all my own, starting with what to call the man I take to my bed."

"If you're going to ask me to be a fucking king for you—"

"I'm asking nothing more than you as you are. And I don't ask it now, I command it. If you obey one order in your life, let it be this, Sandor Clegane: marry me, be my husband, and nothing more."

He was silent for a time, brow scrunched in either disapproval or doubt while his thumbs still traced distracted circles over her skin. Sansa stilled his aimless wandering to prompt him into answering her proposal.

"How's this to work, little bird? The people will demand a king to rule alongside the Queen in the North."

"A new age is upon us. The North is mine and I will rule it as I see fit. I see fit to rule it with my husband who need not be a king, though you are welcome to counsel me."

"Have you told your brother about this?"

"I haven't had the chance but he'll already know and I know he will approve of you as his lawful brother—"

"I fucking bloody well am not."

"Not yet, but you will be," Sansa affirmed. "You will, won't you?"

"Are you asking me now or still commanding me?" he asked.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that's not what you want, what you've always wanted," Sansa dared. "Tell me that having me in every sense of the word hasn't been what you've desired. Tell me that you don't think I've wanted that very same thing. I told you I would have all of you, including your name. I will have it all: your name, your child, _you_. If you would have me in return…"

Sandor flipped her onto her back, spreading wide over her and rubbing himself against her already moist opening. She let out a groan of longing but knew he would not grant her the satisfaction of his presence within her until he had had his say.

"_If _I would have you?" he asked her. "As if that's a fucking question you should be asking. Look at me."

She did, taking in all of him, the entire sight of this man who she could finally have. Might have. Needed.

"You're mine, Sansa" he told her in a fiercely protective growl and she found herself growing incredibly wet at the sound of her name on his lips, perhaps for the first time unaccompanied by her house name.

Yes, he had made her his when he first kissed her and left his mark upon her when he spilled with her. She was his.

"And you are mine."

As she had waited for him to say it the night before, she knew he was waiting for her to say it now. As if there had ever been a doubt, even when she herself did not fully understand it. Jon, Tyrion, Arya, even Bronn had known her affection for this man well before she did but none of them would be here now to hear her say it. Those words were for him and him alone.

One hand touched the faint scarring of the burns upon her face and the other reached for him, to touch him upon his own burns. He was still hesitant to accept her caress in such a way, but she let him close the distance between his face and her hand and as her fingers came into contact with him, she pulled him down to her, her lips just whispering against his.

"Exactly as you are, every part of you—is mine. You love me."

He was trembling at her entrance now, waiting for her…

"And I love you."

With a hand on each hip, he pulled her to him, jamming her onto his manhood and she cried out with the most intense sort of pleasure at his swift intrusion. It was his first time starting out on top with her and she loved that needy look of greed he was giving her. There would be no painstaking foreplay this time; their wants were too immediate. She let her arms fall over her head, offering herself to him to take her how he wanted, for she had done her share of dominating already and she wanted to see just how commanding he could be under the sheets.

He worked her here, entering her with half of his shaft in slow, lazy thrusts to build up her satisfaction first. It was an intense, pleasurable torture when she wanted him to drive into her fast and hard, but his slow movements spoke the language of dedication to her, of love-making and not—as he would call it—fucking. When she felt a bead of sweat running down between her breasts, she pinched her fingers into his corded muscle to ask him for more.

He leaned back, slipping out of her as he repositioned himself on his knees. He lifted one of her long, slender legs, stretching it to drape over his shoulder as he entered her from this new angle and Sansa clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her pleasure. She would have this man as her husband, and the realm would know it, but not yet, and it would not do to parade the fact by screaming for the entire North to hear as Sandor pounded into her, lighting a fire between her legs and bringing her to the edge once again.

He was experienced, but she did not dwell on _how_ he had come by that experience. She was but a novice and in no way familiar to what could make him moan for her, not like how he seemed to know exactly what he could do to make her squeal. He was sweating now with the effort of driving against her from this upright position and it drove her mad with the need to elicit the same pleasurable moans from him.

She tightened her inner walls experimentally around his length, though it was a tremendous feat, for he occupied almost every spare inch within her. As she felt herself clenching around him, he nearly dropped onto her completely, releasing his hold on her leg though it remained draped over his shoulder as he surged forward with a weighty groan.

_He likes that_, she noted, storing the information away to be used numerous times after this.

Ready to be bold once again, she lowered her leg and replaced it along with the other along the back of his thighs, draping her hands along the small of his back and letting them trail down until she found the firm muscles of his buttocks. She squeezed her fingertips into him here and he caught himself just before completely flattening her.

"Gods, woman," he gasped.

She tried to push the rest of him into her, wanting him to sink as far into her as her canal would allow. How could she convey that to him? That she needed every last bit of him her body could take?

_Give me everything_, she told him through gaze alone. _Give me all of you_.

As if he heard her, he sat back once again, allowing her to come to rest atop his thighs as she hugged herself to him, eager for what he was about to give her. Pressing her breasts hard to his chest, he purposely kept her lower body at bay as he commanded her gaze. Then he rested her chin on his shoulder and gave a light nibble at her earlobe.

"You want all of me, then take it," he whispered. "_All _of me." And he slid the rest of the way into her, nudging against the entrance to her womb.

She fastened her arms across his back and joined her hands while her ankles crossed just opposite his navel. She could do nothing but hold on as he steered himself into her with incredible speed and vigor, hands at her hips to drive her back and forth. His shafthead punched her womb with every thrust and the sound of their sweaty bodies slapping against each other was magnified tenfold but Sansa was past the point of caring who heard now.

Perhaps her lust for him did make her inebriated to reason, but she could have shouted from the broken tower that this man was hers at this very moment. The world that had tried its hardest to break both of them needed to know that they were far beyond breaking.

Sandor's breaths turned ragged, warning of his release, but Sansa reached it just before him, shattering around him once again and digging her lips into the damp, salty skin of his neck to conceal her scream of utter ecstasy.

"Sansa," he breathed.

He was coming into her and she remained absolutely still to not waste a single drop of his offering. If her body would accept it, she prayed for the seed to take hold. Gods, how she wanted this man's child, and even if he was not yet ready, she knew she could be, if only her body would allow itself to heal.

Collapsing on his back with Sansa nestled to him, Sandor lay gasping for several moments after. Sansa listened to the rapid staccato of his heartbeat barreling within his chest for a time until it became an almost sleepy beat as his body returned to its normal state. The course hair not covered by his bandages tickled her nose but she inhaled the scent of him and laid a kiss upon it all the same.

"Sandor," she said quietly when she was certain that he was docile. "Will you take me as your wife?"

It was asking much in exposing him to the exact sort of thing he hated: recognition. The North would know that Sandor Clegane was husband to Queen Sansa Stark but that he chose not accept the title of king. He would stand beside her as she sat her throne but would wear no crown upon his head. He would sit beside her at the high table and share her bed but would follow two steps behind and one step aside wherever she would lead. The North would see him, the giant of a man with a burned face to match the queen whom he served. And they would know that he was hers and she was his.

His fingers combed through her hair and then made their way to her chin, lifting it to look him in the eye.

"I might at that," he teased. "Convince me."

Venturing a hand downward, Sansa found that already, he was erect for her again, and so she mounted him and rode him hard to plead her case and when he shouted her name, eyes rolling into the back of his head as his shaft shuddered inside her, she knew her proposal had been accepted.

/ /

She had been somewhat neglectful in her duties as Queen since Sandor had awakened from his state of unresponsiveness and so she knew it was high time she dined in the Great Hall with the rest of the castle. She was careful to dab scented perfumes in her intimate areas, though not so liberally as to alert every passerby that she was deliberately trying to cover up the smell of love making. At the High Table, she found herself alone with Bran for no other lords remained to take up position alongside them. Until she spoke her vows that would wed to the man sitting not four feet in front of her, this table belonged only to the Starks.

The hall was not even half full but those who occupied the neighboring tables made enough noise of merriment to count for twice their number. Bronn had taken a seat at the table closest to her, squeezing himself onto the stool beside Sandor with the latter looking none too happy about it. He had an evil all-knowing smirk playing on his lips as he watched Sansa from below the dais and she gave him a very stern warning in return expression to not say a word.

She and Sandor had agreed to act as they had done the last time Winterfell had seen them together. Their secret might even now be out and about, but it would not do to be so forward about it. Sansa would wait until after her coronation to make the announcement that she had decided upon a worthy husband and no one could make that arrangement for her. Such _power_ in that statement: no one could make that arrangement for her. This was entirely her decision, not the scheming of a man who sought to use her or her father's well-intended but sorely misplaced choice of a suitor. This was her deciding that she would take Sandor Clegane as her husband because she wanted him and would share him with no one (and he would not have shared her either, if the realm insisted she marry a man of noble blood).

She had to scoff at that: _noble _blood. The North's noble blood was stretched thin with the few surviving lords and if they thought she would take a man of the Six Kingdoms as her lord and husband, they were greatly mistaken. She would have no man but the only one she had ever wanted and that would be good enough for the realm that had her to thank for its independence from the rest of the world that had brought destruction upon it.

It was most painful to have to wait to announce what was already an existing engagement between herself and and Sandor, but for his sake, to put off the many stares and whispers about to come his way, she would hold her silence. But not her hand. She would write to Jon and Tyrion on the morrow to deliver the news, for they had wanted this for her and they would be happy that she had managed to salvage something from this war.

She then thought of Bran and how she had not yet spoken to him as was the honorable thing to do, even though he already knew. He would know every word spoken between Sansa and Sandor, ever action they committed to, but she would have to ask for his blessing, as he was the last of her blood.

Turning in her seat to speak to him under cover of boisterous laughter from the rest of the hall, she saw that he had a look of contentment about him. It was not a smile, but it was something other than the distant look he had adopted for all occasions. She found that she was not embarrassed to know that he had seen what had occurred the night before. He had already seen this future for her in the many which she could have chosen from.

"You're happy with him," he said.

"For the first time since we were but children playing about these halls, yes, I am happy."

"So is he, for the first time in his life," said Bran with almost a note of remorse. "Treasure that knowledge, that of everything and everyone in this world, _you_ could do that for him. He has loved you since he dabbed away the blood on your lip, courtesy of Meryn Trant. And you have loved him since the same moment. But you were a child and he was a lost man. He will make a good enough lord, but a unique and dedicated husband. And perhaps a father."

Clutching at the string of hope her brother had just given her, Sansa took his hand under the table. "Do you see children in any of my futures?"

"I do and I don't. But you heard the words from Sandor's own mouth: he will love you with or without a child and he will not risk you for the chance at having one. In this one thing you must proceed with caution. Go to Maester Wolkan and see what can be done, for in preventing the birth of an unwanted child by an unwanted husband, you mutilated yourself. There is a hope, but you must heed the maester's every word."

"But you haven't even let me ask for your blessing yet," said Sansa.

"Then ask me for it. You already know my answer, and you would take him as your husband even without my blessing."

"I want to hear you say it as the part of Brandon Stark that remains that you know how much I love this man and that I want him by my side for as long as the gods give me."

"As your brother, I knew this long before I even knew Sandor Clegane. As a boy, I dreamed of the two of you in the godswood. I saw a burned face upon both of you and when I awoke, I didn't remember the dream, but it returned to me when I saw him riding into Winterfell with Jon. I knew this man was fated to be bound to you, so he is yours. I am happy for you, as are mother and father, Robb, Rickon, and Arya."

Sansa had not been prepared for him to speak of the family they had lost to this war as if he had seen them, spoken to them, heard their replies. Had he, truly? Did they ask him to relay their message to her?

She was spared the process of contemplating what might have been her brother's communication with the dead by Tormund Giantsbane pushing back his stool and rising with his mammoth tusk flask raised. "This is to be the last night we spend in your halls, Lady of Winterfell." Being a wildling, he did not kneel or bow or show that he respected the customs of the kingdoms, but Sansa recognized his attempt at civility as a form of respect for her on behalf of her acceptance of his people, and because she was a Stark, sister of a man he truly respected.

"Our debt to Jon Snow has been paid in protecting his family in his absence, so now we will go home."

Sansa stood up as well. "Any and all provisions you require will be yours without asking, as it is my honor to provide them to a people who had no cause to help those who had wronged them and yet came to our aid more times than not. You fought for my house in the battle against the Bolton army. You fought alongside my house in the Great Battle. You gave further service to protect what remains of my house while we ended the war in the South. Know this, as a promise to you and all your kin: you are always welcome within these walls. Winterfell will never turn away those who live beyond its borders and for your service to House Stark, to the realms of men, our home will always be yours. I know my brother would offer as much, were he here, but on his behalf and with my own personal gratitude, I thank you all for what you have done for us. Be well and may you travel safely to your home."

"You can come north of the Wall as often as you like," Tormund invited. "I told this one here," he nudged Sandor with his tusk and tipping a good portion onto his head. "That those kissed by fire are blessed beyond the Wall. And you've been kissed twice. The pair of you are always welcome to share our fire."

"To the gatherings of friends reunited," toasted Sansa, raising her tumbler and the rest of the hall joined her apart from Sandor who was wiping some of Tormund's spilled drink out of his hair.

It saddened Sansa that the wildlings would be leaving. She had grown rather fond of them and accustomed to their company since she first saw them at Castle Black near on a year ago. She could not claim to know them well, but she knew they had been ready to fall upon their swords for her, for her family because of Jon's gentle heart. If she could persuade them to stay, she would, but she knew they longed for home as she had so often for so many years and she would not wish them to put that longing aside on her behalf.

At the conclusion of the meal, Sansa welcomed the hall's inhabitants to continue about their drinking but excused herself and beckoned that Bronn attend her in her chambers. She saw Sandor rise half up out of his seat, but gestured that he should wait until there were less eyes to follow him out.

In her quarters she took a moment to give him a full-on glower for making those suggestive eyes at her throughout supper,and though thankfully no one had taken notice, she felt the need to remind him of his promise at prudence.

"I'll thank you to not look at me again like you were all this evening, ser. This news is mine and Sandor's alone to share when we deem it necessary."

"Every bloody soul in this castle knows you've been doting on 'im. Won't come as no surprise when you tell 'em all you've taken 'im to bed. When's this wedding to happen, then?"

Struck dumb by the possibility of Bronn pressing his ear to her door as she and Sandor participated in another vigorous act of bedding each other, Sansa began to wonder how else word might have traveled. Did Lord Varys already suspect her of ill actions and had he thus sent his spies to follow her, learn her secrets? How did-?

"You look like I've just hit you again, girl. Don't be so shocked. It's only me what knows about it. Well, me and your brother but he cheated because he's got foresight or whatever the hells he can do. I just guessed and it wasn't that much of a reach. You're a proper lady; you wouldn't bed a man just for the hell of it. You've had a mind to marry the fucker since the day he left you for King's Landing, haven't you? Tell me I'm wrong, but I won't believe you. You were crying loudly enough and long enough for me to know you loved 'im then, wondered if maybe if you'd asked 'im to marry you, he'd have stayed. So now that you've had 'im and he's had you, when's the wedding to take place?"

Sansa closed her mouth to not appear unseemly in gaping, opened it with the intent to tell him off, but closed it again. Her sworn shield was too clever a man to benefit his health and he was lucky Sansa found that as one of his admirable qualities rather than treating it like a threat.

"I know you as well as anyone these days, better than some, and I know you asked 'im already. I know he said yes because he's a stupid man, but not stupid enough to say no. So I'll ask you for the last time: when is this wedding, and do I merit an invitation?"

Sansa slapped him, lightly, hardly more than a tap on his cheek, but it was meant to scold him without delivering the physical pain that came with it.

"You are one of four men who I would see present for my wedding and count yourself lucky because I don't intend to have many attendees. This is not a ceremony of spectacle, but one of meaning to me and the man I marry."

"Then let me be the first to congratulate you on your engagement and all that shite and say that I'm damned well happy for you and somewhat relieved that I don't have to keep egging you to get a move on with it already, m'lady. Or is it Your Grace now?"

"It will be, but your slip-up will be forgiven and when in private company, you may still call me by my name. You proved yourself to me on the battlefield in not only saving my life, but the lives of my brother and Sandor Clegane. I pardoned you, released you from my service, and you returned to me. I took you as mine for the North and so I alone can decide your fate from here. There is no ruling authority to question my decision to rescind your sentence in front of the very court in which I delivered it. You shall be granted a lordship and a castle of your choosing from the ones that stand empty and devoid of a lord to rule them, if you so desire. You will begin your own house and be my bannerman, to answer my call to arms if I have need of you."

"What's the second-largest stronghold in the North?" asked Bronn immediately.

"Any number of them. The Last Hearth, Karhold, the Dreadfort, Bear Island."

"I'll settle for the one closest to here, in case you have need of me again."

"The Dreadfort it is then, previous home to the now extinct line of Boltons. I trust that you will never betray me as your new castle's former lord did my brother."

"Not unless some fucker with more dragons comes along and tells me it's my life or yours," Bronn joked.

"Then I name you Lord Bronn Blackwater. Take your sigil as your name."

She went to her wardrobe and presented him with a gift she had had the seamstress work tirelessly on: the first of many banners to come of an arrow alight with green flame stretching out across a black bay.

"I had it designed on account of what Tyrion told me occurred during the Battle of the Blackwater. I hope it's to your liking—"

"You made me a lord, Sansa. Whether or not a banner is to my liking doesn't mean shit."

"But do you like it?"

"A bit much green, but I'll survive somehow." He draped the banner over his shoulder as if testing the colors against his skin tone and then took her by surprise in his next statement. "With the soldiers and inhabitants you plan to give me to maintain my castle, might I also get a man who can run the place as well as any lord?"

"Is that not your duty? As Lord of the Dreadfort, you must be present _at _the Dreadfort."

"Sometimes, aye, but I'll be needing a man or woman who can keep the place standing for most of the year. When and if I have a wife, she can hold the castle for me and my sons will learn to do the same."

"What, then, is the purpose of me offering you a lordship if you do not intend to act as one?" asked Sansa in exasperation.

"First duty is to my queen. If you can let your future husband be your husband, a lord, Commander of the Queensguard, and whatever the hells else you've promised him, it's only fair that you let me be Lord of the Dreadfort and your sworn shield, also a member of the Queensguard."

Sansa had thought that nothing else could surprise her about this man, but she was quite wrong. She was breaking rules and testing boundaries in allowing a man to be her husband and not a king, a member of the Queensguard and allowed to marry and sire children, so it should have been no great task to allow Bronn to be her vassal as well as her guardian, shouldn't it?

"I have offered you freedom from your burden twice, and you have twice asked to remain in my service. Why?"

"Do I need a reason? I've grown rather used to you and I don't trust the big fucker to be quick enough to save you every time. Even with him and the wolf, neither are as quick as me and be honest with me: you would miss this face, missing eye and all."

"I would miss your company and not miss your sardonic nature one bit," Sansa admitted.

"Then I'm staying. Won't stay at the Dreadfort too long and your man and wolf should be enough combined for you until I return, though you might be able to handle yourself now."

"Ser—Lord Bronn," began Sansa, already correcting herself but then dashing it all in favor of appealing to his sense of understanding for plainness, "Bronn, if you would rather follow me about from day to day, stand in on my council, listen to me attend my people, and be at my side as you have these past several months rather than have someone do the same for you in a castle of your very own with servants and soldiers of your own, tell me now."

"I'd rather be here," said Bronn simply. "I've got two friends in this world: one in the Six Kingdoms and one in the North and seeing as how I don't belong to the Six Kingdoms anymore, I'm staying where my only friend is. I don't know the North or its people, but I know you and I'd rather be among friends than in some castle with only myself and wine for company. I lived that life before and it didn't serve me well enough to want to continue it. This is what I choose."

The gods must have given Sansa some inkling of foresight to be able to come to Bronn's defense as he stood trial and claim him when she had no reason to. This was the same man who she had once feared when he served Tyrion, yet it was not. He was _more_ now.

"Then serve me as you have, my friend."

With that, he swept down and planted a light kiss upon her cheek before letting himself out where he ran into a solid wall of cloth that made up Sandor's chest.

"M'lord," said Bronn with the same sarcastic sweeping bow he had first given Sansa. "And me brother to be, it would seem. Both of us Queensguard, both of us lords, though I'm to be Lord of the Dreadfort and you're to be Lord of Winterfell, I suppose. Congratulations on your nuptials, you big fuck."

He smacked Sandor across the chest with an open-palmed slap of camaraderie and went on his way, leaving Sandor too stunned to go after him or even make a swipe at him.

"M'lady," he said when Bronn had gone and he still stood outside in the corridor.

"Has the hall emptied?" asked Sansa in what sounded like an innocent enough question but was her asking if anyone had seen where he had gone.

"Apart from your brother," said Sandor.

"Then I bid you goodnight, my lord," said Sansa loudly.

He stepped in so half of his body was within and half without her doorway. "Keep your door unlocked," he whispered, and then shut it behind him.

Her coronation was not far away but she was determined to wait until then to tell her kingdom of the man she planned to wed—the man she _would_ wed. Until then, and as much as she disliked it, they would have to keep up the pretense that they did not share quarters. She would lock her door at night to prevent anyone from barging in unannounced and he would slip away well after she had left her quarters to pull all attention from him, should any prying eyes still be watching. But she would have him every night. Now that he was hers, she would not go one night without him.

She had dressed down to her nightgown, rubbing at her arms to keep out the cold until he came to her, for she would light no fire at his behest. When she saw the night watchmen switching out on the ramparts for the midnight shift to begin, he came. He let himself in and bolted the door behind him, standing somewhat uncertainly where he had come in as if not quite sure that this was now his room as well as hers.

"Come to bed," she invited, and it was the only encouragement he needed to cross the room and throw himself over her. He had only just begun to rip her out of her nightgown when she saw that he noticed Ghost laying on the floor between the bed and the wall.

"What's he doing here?"

"He's our wolf. He sleeps with his pack," said Sansa, working at Sandor's breeches and quite pleased to see that he was fully ready for her.

"I'm not fuck—" He paused as if considering something and by the way he was chewing on the inside of his cheek, she knew that whatever was about to come from his lips was a difficult thing to say. "I'm not making love to you with him watching."

_Gods be good, he said it._

Hardly able to contain herself as the warmth of his words washed over her, Sansa offered, "Then tell him to go hunt and you can let him in after."

"And what makes you think I'll be the one to do that?"

"Because you mind that he watches. I don't."

So he instructed Ghost to find a meal for himself, once again bolted the door, and finished what he had started. It was as their morning consummation had been: fast, rough, and so tastefully satisfying. Now that she had him, she wondered how she ever could have gone without this wondrous feeling igniting her from the inside out. She wished she had had him sooner, but she knew she had not been ready at the time. If she had tried to let him take her when he kissed her in the stables, she would not have been ready, but now that she was, gods, how she couldn't stop.

She drank in the sight of him with his eyes clasped shut, brow scrunched as he worked at her, rubbing himself within her walls and finding pleasure in every thrust. He made love as a man who knew well what to do but also a man who might have been saving himself for her. Experienced, but new, just for her.

When he neared his completion, his lips brushed against her earlobe to tell her resolutely once again that she was his, his woman, his wife-to-be. And he told her he loved her which sent a shiver through her that built into a scream. He slapped his hand over her mouth to absorb the sound as the two of them released at the same time and then swallowed the rest of her cry with his own mouth, kissing her into oblivion.

/ /

She dreamed deeply and clearly, the pictures of her mind as bright as if her own eyes were seeing them during her waking moments.

She dreamed of him making the walk up the center of the hall to her with the eyes of three dozen lords on him, unsheathing his sword, digging its point into the stone floor, and kneeling before her with only the slightest bow in his head all the better to keep his gaze upon her. He swore his sword to her in sight of gods and men and once she had accepted his protection, he walked up the two steps to where she stood beside her simple wooden carved throne and though she expected him to take his place at her right-hand side, instead he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her. Such an act was not done in proper court, but this was _her _court and she wanted her people to know that she had chosen this man.

When he broke from her, the Great Hall was dead silent in anticipation of the Queen's reaction but Sansa only pulled him down by his shoulder straps to kiss him back. It was an incredible weight lifted from her shoulders to reveal her love for this man and she would not shy away from openly displaying it. Her days of concealing her emotions where others could see were over. Let the North pass the word about, sing it, shout it from every parapet: Sansa Stark would take Sandor Clegane as her husband.

She dreamed of her wedding, a simple affair attended by Bran, Bronn, and a handful of others including Tyrion who had made the long journey up North just for her and of course, Jon who Sansa saw having private words with Sandor beforehand. Tyrion embraced her with tears of joy for her in his eyes as he gifted her with a small book which, upon opening, she found to be an illustrated retelling of hers and Sandor's meeting up to their wedding day after which the story—told in song format as a tale of a wolf and a hound—led off into a yet undiscovered realm of possibility in which they might have children and achieve that seemingly unobtainable ending that Sandor had always chided her for.

She dreamed that she wore a dress of her own design, silver in color and nothing at all like the ones she had worn before that both exposed too much of her and bound her too tightly within them. Her hair hung freely about her face, down her back, catching on the wind as she took Jon's arm and made her way to the weirwood tree where Sandor was waiting for her in his newly fitted armor of both House Stark and House Clegane colors. With a tender kiss to her forehead, Jon let her step forward out of his reach. This was no ceremony of the South with a septon and vows to the Seven; it was a ritual of the North in which Sansa and Sandor would face the wierwood tree and pledge themselves to each other and no one else.

When Jon asked who would come to claim her and as Sandor named himself, Sansa felt warmth spreading to every corner of her body, felt herself growing lighter with a giddy happiness she could not remember feeling. She could hardly contain herself as Sandor brought forth the one bit of his Western upbringing that he insisted on keeping to: the casting of the cloak.

It was a cloak of grey backdrop with a silver wolf and a black dog meeting on a fiery red field: House Clegane's new sigil in honor of its new place among the North. Sandor cast it about her shoulders, stoic-faced as ever, but as she turned back around to face him, the undamaged part of his face pulled back in the smallest smile.

And when there was call for a bedding ceremony among the two dozen castle dwellers who had attended the humble supper after, Sandor demanded to know which man proposed to lay hands upon the Queen to escort her to the bedchamber. Among cowering men and intimidated women, Sandor carried his bride himself, lay her upon their bed, and stripped himself, then her. He entered her easily as if he had done the act countless times before and they pushed each other to completion. After, he lay beside her, caressing her belly where already a child grew.

She had dissolved into tears when she discovered the news not three days past. She was not barren, not damaged. After a mere fortnight past her first time abed with Sandor, her coronation, and the announcement of their marriage to be, she had conceived, for his seed was strong and had quickened inside her, though he could not know yet. She would tell him in the morning, but for tonight, the dog and the wolf would lie together.

The morning after, she intertwined her fingers with his and guided them to her belly, beaming at him as sunlight peeked in through their window. He lifted his head from their pillow, asking wordlessly for confirmation and she gave a breathless giggle of pure ecstasy. Then he crashed his mouth down on hers and she felt his smile, his mounting heartbeat. She felt his elation that he had given her this offering and she was all too willing to bear it.

She dreamed of their four children, three with vivid red hair and one of auburn, three with blue eyes and one with brown. She dreamed of their last ride upon the empty moors, their pace slow to accommodate their ailing limbs. And finally, she dreamed of laying abed with Sandor, her hand upon his heart and his arm around her as he drew his last breath and the gods that would have him gave him new life in their world.

And when she woke from this future not yet told, he was still there, still hers with his arm resting across her hip, drawing her in near to him as the content breathing burrowed deep in his chest, coming out to ruffle her hair. She leaned her face near to his to kiss him, but he did not stir, simply giving a content twitch in his sleep before his hand tightened at the small of her back and unconsciously held her closer.

There were nights when she would feel him stiffen against her and begin to thrash and she would call for Ghost's help to still him. Ghost would lay against him, pressing the warmth of his body against Sandor to calm him and when Sandor awoke, it was often to screams to put out the nonexistent fire in the hearth. Sansa would cradle him to her, stroking his hair and waiting for the memories to fade. And then he would be gone, lost in that twilight world of what had been done to him, and she would not be able to reach him for days at a time, but he would always come back and when he did, he would lay with her, holding her possessively to him. Then, he would take Ghost and a horse and ride across the moors with no destination in mind. She knew he sought a connection with his friend, a memory of the man he had committed to the flames, for it was also this man he dreamed of, the man whose named he called out in fright even as the fits of terror claimed him.

Some would say he was ever the loyal dog in how he always returned to her, but when she reclaimed him for the North, when he took her as his wife, he became part of the North, evident so long ago in how Ghost had chosen him. He had the wolf in him, the wolf that returned to its pack, and though he wandered far and often in both mind and body, he always found his way back.

_When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives_.

And he was no longer a lone wolf.


	31. Chapter 31: Returning

**SANDOR**

"Stop looking at me like that, you twat," Sandor snarled at the sellsword who was watching him finish donning his armor.

"There's no need to get hostile. We're friends now, aren't we?" asked Bronn genially.

"No, we're not."

"Of course we are. One man can't go about wiping shit off another without getting to know him well. Granted, you weren't aware I was there most of the time, but I had me share of cleaning you off among other things where I once tried to kill you, so if we aren't enemies, we're friends."

"I had friends."

"Aye, and one of them was a man who tried to kill you, wasn't he? Besides, Ghost accepted me as part of the pack, so that makes us as close as kin."

"Walk away now," Sandor warned, securing his sword belt and checking his reflection in the looking glass atop the wardrobe. He made certain to only look from the neck down to avoid catching a glimpse of his face, for he knew what he would see and was in no mood to have further reminder of how nervous he was, regardless of what he had told Sansa the night prior and several nights before that.

She had been in absolute shambles for three days before her coronation, stressing over the announcement of their engagement even though she claimed to not care one way or the other what her people thought of it. She would lay facing the ceiling at night, thumbs twiddling in endless circles in the silence until Sandor had to physically reach over and still them by covering them with his own. When he had finally made her put out the candle by which she had stayed awake reading a congratulatory scroll from her brother, Sandor kept his arm across her midsection to prevent her from trying to get up and contemplate again.

She still managed to sit up in the early hours of darkness and stare across the room at her desk. Sensing that she was awake, Sandor asked her what exactly was so troubling that she was in a state of anxiety she should not be in.

"I am anticipating the immediate reactions of my court when I make the announcement."

"You said you didn't give a damn one way or the other."

"I don't, not for me. I care about how their scrutiny might render you. I know the compromising position this puts you in, how it bears you to the people and puts you out in the open for them all to see."

"Do you see me losing sleep over that fact?"

"No, but—"

"I'm used to having bigger and grander courts than yours stare at me and I've lived with it for more years than you've been breathing, little bird. Nothing those people can say or do will hurt me."

"Perhaps not, but it draws attention to you in the way you hate, and if I can avoid that, I will."

"If I have to suffer through a few minutes of having lords and ladies whisper about me behind their hands just so I don't have to sneak into your room every night, I'll gladly take that exchange. Now, stop thinking about it and sleep."

"I'm not tired," Sansa protested.

"I can do something about that," Sandor suggested even though he was all too willing to fall back asleep this very moment. If it would help tire her, he would commit to it.

"I've no time to bathe again before the ceremony, and if we do, I'll most assuredly need another bath. Not tonight."

"You mean not this morning," Sandor corrected, pulling her down against the pillows to at least prevent her from sitting up uncomfortably and fidgeting. But she did not sleep, even though he had no trouble at all in that regard. He was aware of her troubled form but he could not share in her worry when she was putting the energy into stressing over something that mattered so little to him. Yes, he would be placed on a pedestal for the nobles of the court to see and he would hate it, but there was nothing worse they could do to him than had already been done. They knew the sacrifices he had made for their kingdom and even if they disapproved of Sansa's decision, they would have to hold their silence or risk their queen's displeasure.

Sansa had to apply a liberal amount of powder to hide the dark, worried circles under her eyes when she rose to dress herself several hours later. This would be the last day she locked their door at night, the last time she would have to keep her handmaiden out, but she was still in need of someone to help fasten her into her coronation dress—a task left to Sandor.

With only his breeches on hanging loosely about his waist, he rose to tie up the individual laces that worked their way down her spine to the small of her back. She had designed the dress herself and done much of the stitching in her spare time with only a slightly more experienced seamstress putting in the finishing touches. It was black along the sleeves with shimmering patterns of silver leaves woven into the material. The rest was one flowing piece of metallic grey with a suggestion of red and blue around the skirts as a tribute to her Tully roots. She braided only a small portion of her hair back in the same fashion she had sported upon being dragged from bed to gather with the other women of the court in Maegor's Holdfast. It was the same as it had been when he had left her to the Lannisters and fled King's Landing.

Sandor didn't know what that said of her, for he knew she had planned her entire appearance for this day down to every last meticulous detail.

Upon finishing preparing herself, she allowed the sellsword in to escort her to the Great Hall's antechamber where she would wait to be revealed to her court. Bronn then returned to bring Sandor the newly made armor that he would don as he pledged himself to Sansa and finally committed himself to speaking vows after years of dodging the act. But these ones he would gladly take.

Sansa had only chosen two Queensguard thus far and both Sandor and Bronn were to be sworn in after her crowning, but every lord and lady of the North had crammed into the Great Hall to individually pledge their swords and services to their new queen and since Sandor and Bronn were not yet officially anointed lords, they would have to wait for all the others to swear fealty first. Therefore, Sandor made sure to completely empty his bladder before taking his place at the back of the hall because he was certain that he would be standing there for quite some time.

He acquired more than one stare just standing idly in the shadowy corner of the hall and hated to think of the magnitude of that stare once he stood alongside the queen who would proclaim that he was to be her husband. The majority of these lords had seen him before and knew him by face, if not by name after the Great Battle, but their wives and daughters did not recognize him in the least, having temporarily relocated to the Eyrie during the winter while their husbands and sons stood alongside Winterfell to fight the dead. His face frightened many of them, as it ever did, and yet he saw two children smiling at him in a manner that was not at all like the cruel smirks he had garnered before. The boy was the younger of the two and he waved to Sandor.

"You've got an admirer," whispered Bronn when he spotted the young lordling. "He's probably never seen someone so tall before."

Both of them knew damn well it wasn't Sandor's height that had intrigued the children, but as a horn sounded, Sandor had no time to voice his opinion aloud. The room came to attention and a host of Stark soldiers lined the walkway from the entry to the foot of a small platform that had been constructed to replace the high table. Upon the dais was a wooden throne engraved with running wolves along the backboard and its armrests curled into carved claws. It was not grand or large, but it evoked as much power as the Iron Throne ever did.

The Stark soldiers were called to present arms and they drew their swords in a simultaneous salute as Sansa entered the hall and made her way underneath the canopy of swords. As the only unbiased man with both power and no power at all, Maester Wolkan was given the honor of announcing the coming of the queen as Sansa ascended to her throne in a confident stride that spoke nothing of the worried woman Sandor had seen leave their bedroom.

Sweeping her skirts to the side, Sansa stood with her back to the throne and the maester spoke in a much grander and richer voice than Sandor had ever heard out of him, "Hail Queen Sansa of the House Stark, First of Her Name, Protector of the Northern Realm!"

A silver crown was brought forth, bearing what appeared to be an intricate pattern of waves to represent House Tully, a wolf's head curling to the left in a majestic pose of howling to the moon—and rising to meet the wolf's head in an open-mouthed snarl with flames erupting around it, was a dog's head. Just before the metal touched her brow, Sansa's eyes found him at the back of the hall and her reserved smile widened just for him.

Sandor didn't know if anyone else was giving the attention to the crown that he was giving it, but just then, his heart swelled with pride and possession. His little bird had already made herself his by taking his house sigil upon her crown. Already, she was committing herself to him and showcasing both of her current houses as well as the one to which she would soon belong. A little bird, a trout, a wolf, and a dog—she was all of them, now before she even told her subjects of what she was to be.

Gods, how he loved this woman.

Bronn cupped his hands around his mouth to holler, "The Queen in the North!" and the call was taken up by every mouth in the room, every mouth in the castle as Sansa Stark became the first queen of a new age. The chant continued as the lords and ladies filed into line to swear their allegiance to her and only ended when she rose to beckon the first lord forward.

Sandor had stood on longer processions than this as he listened to Joffrey taunt and torment the people of King's Landing but never had he been so eager for it all to be over as he was now. He wanted it to be his turn to approach the throne as much as he loathed what would come when he finally got there…

"Ser Bronn of the Blackwater," called Sansa and with a nudge to Sandor's ribs, Bronn flashed him a wink before making the walk up the path to the base of the throne where he knelt. Sansa gifted him with a name for his house and a castle for his name. He would henceforth be Lord Bronn Blackwater of the Dreadfort, sworn shield to the Queen and a member of her Queensguard, a series of titles that broke all sorts of traditions but none which were questioned by her people.

And now it was his turn…

"Sandor Clegane, come forward now and pledge yourself to me."

For as short a hall as this, none had ever seemed so long, putting him so far away from her. The walk might as well have taken an hour. He had never spoken recited vows before and never in front of an audience. He had never fumbled over his words with embarrassment and never had cause to actually speak anything of consequence where so many could hear him.

He arrived at the foot of the dais and took his newly forged sword from its scabbard before kneeling, head bowed and eyes closed as he let the words come forth. "I, Sandor Clegane, swear to defend my queen from harm or threat. I swear to obey my queen's commands. I swear to keep my queen's secrets and counsel my queen when requested. I swear to defend my queen's name and honor. I do swear to surrender my sword unto your service from this day until my last. I swear to fall upon it or wield it for my queen's life. I pledge myself to my queen in the sights of gods and men."

He expected the words to taste like bile for how nonsensical and foolishly stern they sounded, but was properly surprised to find heat resonating in his breast as if the vows themselves carried some weight and magical binding that would hold him to his promise.

"I name you Lord Commander Sandor Clegane, head of the Queensguard, my sworn shield, and Lord of Winterfell."

The whispers began, rippling through the gathered crowd behind him as they all considered what that might mean, if he was to be lord of the stronghold that already bore the Queen's name.

Sandor and Sansa had had a last minute debate about whether to make their announcement after her crowning or the day following when there were less eyes to bear witness. Sandor had thoroughly been willing to devote this day to Sansa, to let this be hers and hers alone, but she had donned a crown with his sigil and announced him lord of her stronghold. There was nothing to hold him back from finishing what she began. She had paved the way and was leaving the decision up to him if he would let it be known now or later.

_Fuck it_.

He rose and replaced his sword in its sheath, climbing the steps to where she was standing and waiting for him. Steering her around to face him, he yanked her into his chest and jammed his mouth upon hers. He had startled her, but after the initial surprise wore off, he felt her wrap her arms around the back of his neck and deepen their first exposed kiss.

_Look long and hard,_ Sandor invited, knowing he had every gaze in the room right now centered on him, this half-burned man who was hungrily kissing the Queen with no fear of repercussions. When he broke the kiss, he felt reassuring pressure along his burned cheek and ran his thumb across Sansa's equally scarred flesh. She took his hand and turned to address her subjects.

"You would not see a queen before you if not for this man beside me. You would not have a kingdom of your own if not for this man beside me. House Stark had been indebted to Sandor Clegane for many years, but only with the fall of King's Landing did I see the full severity of that cost. This man bled for me, burned for me, and all but died for me, and I for him. When I claimed the North to be freed from the Seven Kingdoms, one of my conditions was to rule it as I see fit with no outside interference. I proposed that new laws be written, new traditions be sprung. As a girl held prisoner by a tyrant king, as a young woman ferried away into an unknown future, as a woman sold to my enemies, there was nothing I knew for certain until I came home to Winterfell when my brother Jon retook the castle for the North. And when the Long Night came for the North, Sandor Clegane was the one constant I could rely upon. He gave me the means to defend myself in the sacking of King's Landing. He willingly allowed himself to come to harm by Cersei Lannister's hands so that I would not. He has loved me longer and truer than any man who yet draws breath to this day. He offered his sword to me in confidence, seeking nothing more, and that is what he shall have. I proposed this engagement and I decided what that shall entail. I decided for myself to take this man as my husband, and I will. The Queen in the North shall wed this lord, but he will not be king. He will be Lord Commander Sandor Clegane of Winterfell, my sworn shield and husband, and nothing more. On this day, I swear in the sights of gods and men that I will have this man and I would invite anyone who opposes my decision to step forward and provide validation for an ulterior option now."

Sandor felt every eye in the room examining him. For once he did not shy away from the intensity of a crowd's gaze. If they were going to stare, it was high time they stared at him for something he wanted. When Sansa specified the condition of their marriage in that he would remain lord commander, not king, he felt those same eyes narrow in suspicion. What man would refuse a kingship? What man would not want the honor and the privilege of becoming a king? And what sort of kingdom was this to be if a queen could wed a man who would never rule?

It was his little bird's kingdom and they could all bloody well sod off because she would do as she liked.

Then the sellsword came to their rescue to break the tentative silence. "The Wolf and the Hound!"

The two children who had had such interest in Sandor earlier echoed Bronn's shout and then their lordly parents added their voices to the call until the hall rang with it, reveled in it.

Sandor almost missed the moment in which he could feel Sansa's nervous grip relax in his own, so focused was he on these people who chanted for him, in full support of him.

_Let them look_, he thought again. _Let them see. She's mine._

/ /

She bore his colors, she bore his name, but she bore him no child. Months after they said their vows in the godswood his seed did not take hold. A year of spring passed, and then two, then three, and still her belly did not change. He could see the forlorn sadness upon her face when word reached them of a babe born in Wintertown, of a child quickening in the womb of one of the ladies of the court, of a daughter born to Bronn's wife in the Dreadfort. She longed for a child of her own but would not let her yearning be seen at court. Sandor was the only one who was treated to such a depressing sight.

He wanted to give her this small gift, but he could only do so much on his part. They lay together nearly every night and never once did he withdraw, instead allowing his seed to trickle deep within her. Neither of them spoke of the potential reason for her barren state, but they both knew it was no fault of his.

Truth be told, as much as he wanted her to have a babe born of her own loins, the thought did not bring him the joy he knew it would have brought her. He was not overly fond of children and to have one of his own filled him with dread at the very thought. He did not want a child, not in the least, but he would not tell her that when she had her heart set upon it.

The fourth year of spring was upon them when Sandor was awoken from slumber to a sound of pure terror. Her moon blood had come to her heavily and painfully, so much that he heard her screaming at the privy and he ran to her to see red staining the soft flesh of her inner thighs as she hunched over the hole. There was more blood than there should have been and Sandor carried her to the maester to demand an answer.

It took a quick examination on the maester's part as well as some intimate questions such as when Sandor had last spilled in her and how often, but the man was not one to judge such things. He allowed Sansa to continue to bleed to observe the nature of her moon blood and then collected a sample which Sandor found revolting and slightly invasive. The results yielded a hurtful and shattering truth: she had been with child. Only a few weeks along, but enough to know that she had conceived, and she had not told him for this fear exactly. She feared to give him hope, only to have it dashed if she suffered a miscarriage, which was what had occurred.

In tears of sorrow and agony, Sansa cleaned herself in the maester's study, dabbing at the blood coating her lower half as Sandor held up her nightgown.

A woman's blood had never frightened him or made him uncomfortable as it had other men. After all, he was the first man to see her after she had become a woman, the first to see her writhe with the pain of it all. It had been an unpleasant thing to hear, especially after his ears had already heard it once before: screaming. He made his rounds about the Red Keep beginning with Joffrey's corridor and working his way down, but her scream had sent him running. He arrived just feet from her door when he saw her handmaiden dash from the room and inside he found Sansa madly shoving her mattress into the smoldering hearth with half of it catching fire and dangerously close to licking at the bottom of her nightgown. She hadn't noticed him as she continued to stuff as much of her mattress into the fireplace as possible but when it began to spit sparks at her, he rushed in, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her from the half-charred remains even as she shrieked at him to allow her to continue burning it.

He kept one arm around her squirming form, holding her tight against his armor as he stamped out the rest of the fire with his boot. He placed her covers back upon the now bare bedframe and steered her onto it where she sat sobbing and then he saw why. There was blood upon one of the sheets he had saved from the fire and he saw bits of it trickling down her bare legs.

She had flowered overnight and he was the first to see, the one to stand guard over her as her handmaiden came rushing back and the guards two floors below barged in to pinpoint the commotion. One of them had taken the news of Sansa's flowering to Cersei, not Sandor, though he suspected that Sansa did not know this and now was not the time to remind her as she mopped up the last of what might have been their child and placed a small, absorbent sponge inside of her to collect the rest.

The pain endured and even supplements from the maester and a heated pouch filled with scalding water for her belly did nothing to soothe her. She cried into the night, unable to sleep as she lay on her side and turned away from him and he hadn't the faintest idea how to help her, what he might do for her when it was more than just pain of losing the child. She felt the pain of self-loathing, something he knew all too well, something he had lived by more years than he had not. And he would not allow her to feel that on behalf of her own body's trauma. It was no fault of hers that the child had not lived, not even come into half of a being.

He rested his hand on her side and felt her grow still underneath it, waiting for him to speak, but he had no words for her. She intertwined her fingers with his but did not turn to face him as she cried herself into a fitful sleep. He stood vigil for her, protecting her against her own pain and nightmares by stroking the back of her neck when she would twitch and by countering his own fear with his love for this woman. For the first time since before they had first lay together, he struck life into a fire in the hearth to reheat the pouch for her midsection and replaced it upon her skin once it was once again hot to the touch. When he finally saw her brow unknit at some point just before dawn, he doused the fire, draped several coverlets over her, and stole out of the room.

As he expected, her brother was awake and waiting for Sandor by sitting up in bed, hands folded.

"She will heal," said the young man. "The pain is temporary."

"That pain's going to stay with her for years," Sandor countered, keeping his anger at Bran in check even though he very much wanted to fly at him just now and shake him for not telling Sansa of this future long ago. "She's been in pain for years, seeing other women bearing children when she can't. How much longer does she have to wait until something fucking happens?"

"If you tell her, she will have to wait no longer. If you choose not to say anything, she will be waiting for the rest of her life. I saw one child three times in the many futures after she married you. I saw no other children and if she has not yet conceived, she never will."

Damn him. The boy knew that Sansa's womb was damaged beyond repair, beyond hope, but he had said nothing, and for what? She had spent these past years insisting that Sandor release himself within her to not waste a single drop of his seed, exhausting energy in hoping for something that was not to be.

"And you didn't tell her this? You didn't think she deserved to know, after the shit she's been through to try, thinking something might happen?"

"Sometimes, it is better to not know. If I had told her that she would find happiness in you at the cost of losing our sister, would that make her feel any better? Would you have preferred that I told you that you would find your way back to her at the cost of seeing your one true friend die in your arms? You must come to terms with your grief on your own, not before or after and now that she has experienced this loss, she will know that the Stark bloodline will end."

A damned fool, that's what Sandor was. All this time, he had believed that Sansa only wished for an heir to make the final establishment of her devotion to him. A child would complete their journey as a man and a woman and he believed that she had wanted that to prove herself to him, prove herself worthy of being the woman he loved. He had never considered that as Queen in the North and the last Stark in Winterfell capable of furthering her bloodline, she was relying on her ability to conceive to keep her ancestral home with the house that had built it. But Jon Snow was not full Stark, as she had told Sandor in the strictest confidence, and Bran was incapable of siring children, leaving only Sansa to ensure the survival of her house. And she couldn't, which meant that the name Stark ended with her, a woman too spoiled to produce an heir that might continue the family line.

The first Queen in the North would be the last to be named Stark and Winterfell would fall into the hands of others. Of course she would have wanted a child to prevent that. She was no more ready for motherhood now than she had been when she had first refused moon tea and though no one was insistent on her producing an heir, she had taken it upon herself anyway to honor those who had fallen so that the name Stark might live on.

"A child was all she bloody wanted," Sandor told Bran dejectedly.

"All she wanted was you," Bran corrected. "She was duty-bound to have a child, but don't imagine for one second that she ever wanted it because she wanted to be a mother. She often fantasized about bearing children, but she was never meant to be a mother. It was the idea of falling in love that intrigued her as a child, the notion of being a queen who wore beautiful gowns and had the adoration of her people with a handsome king to call her own. But when she became that queen, her wants had changed. She made her own dress, simple as it was. She was chosen by the people because she had proven herself to be a capable ruler. And she chose you, the man who would never become king. What she desired as a child and what she had when she fulfilled her dream were nearly complete opposites right down to her intentions to enter motherhood. My sister is and has always has been somewhat selfish in that she devotes herself entirely to one person and in doing so in such a selfless manner, she becomes greedy with her need to be everything to that person."

"If you're going to tell me that after nearly four years, I'm the one who drove her to this—"

"I never would tell you that. Everything she wanted before you was empty, shallow, and unfulfilling. Not until she decided that she truly wanted you did her wants have any meaning. Her love for you shaped her into the queen she is and the woman she was always supposed to be. And I say again, she was never meant to be a mother, nor you a father. You love each other too much to share each other, even with your own child."

Sandor saw no fault in this. If he wanted to be a selfish bastard and keep his little bird to himself, he bloody well would. He would not be told that it was more beneficial for either of them to love the other less. To simply have her love him was enough for him—it should be enough for her as well.

/ /

She was awake and hugging the water pouch to her belly when he returned to their quarters. Sandor decided to forego the uncertain silence that would have followed and instead knelt beside the bed to look her in the face.

"I don't want to hear you apologize to me for losing it," he told her stoically.

"But you know what it means now that I have," Sansa prompted. "Sandor, what has become of queens in the past who could not provide the realm with an heir?"

"Forget the godsdamned realm," he snapped. "This is your body and your life and I would let the realm fucking burn if it meant you'd never birth a child. I told you when you asked me to take you as my wife—I told you that you didn't owe me this, and you don't. And if it leads to this pain every time, I swear I'll never fucking spill inside you again."

"No—"

"I'm not going to see you hurt for me, do you hear me?"

"Child or none, I still want you, Sandor and if I cannot have you—"

"You can. You can if you promise me that you'll have your moon tea every time. I'll pour it down your throat if I have to, but if you want me, that is my condition. If you want me and you can accept that you can't birth a child, that is my condition. The Starks will end with you and that's not your fault. If you hadn't done what you did to prevent yourself from carrying that bastard's child, you never would have survived. You did what you had to, words from your own mouth, remember?"

"I ruined my own body. It's because of me that House Stark will fade."

"Then let it. Who's left to judge you for it? You can't control a damn thing that happens after you die and you won't live forever. You freed the North, but it doesn't need your name or you to remain its own kingdom. You've done enough for your kingdom, so stop thinking about what it needs."

Sandor moved closer, clasping his hands over hers.

"You know you'll never be a mother. Tell me you know that."

"I know it," she said, wiping at the continuous tears running down her cheeks. "But how do you?" She examined his face for the truth and he let her have it in his avoidance of her gaze. "Bran told you. He told you, but not me."

"You think he should have? You think it would have made this easier?"

"He could have told me and not left me to clutch at hope when there was none. Three years of trying and waiting with as many losses."

_As many losses?_

"What do you mean by that?" Sandor demanded.

Sansa bit into her lip, caught in a bare-faced admittance of secrets she had been keeping from him.

"This was your third?"

"Our third," she corrected. "Would have been our third."

He could not even be angry at her for not telling him with how downcast she was now in the face of her failure. She was already miserable at being told through Sandor that she was barren; she did not need Sandor's judgment for keeping secret the losses of two babes before this one. She needed reassurance and just now, Sandor believed he had the perfect anecdote to her despair.

"Daenerys Targaryen couldn't have children either," Sandor reminded her.

"But she had dragons."

"She needed dragons because she wasn't a queen and had no kingdom. You have yours without dragons or children and that should be more than enough for your fucking realm to ask of you."

Sandor climbed back into bed with her and she rolled over to rest her forehead under his chin, lulled back into slumber by his ministrations down her back. Just when he thought that she was deep enough in sleep that he could find some for himself, she made a groggy but resonating statement.

"If we had had a son, I would liked to have named him Jorah."

"Aye," Sandor agreed. "But I think his namesake will find a way to cope without having a Stark bear his name."

"He would have been a Clegane," Sansa reminded him. "But how would you know what Ser Jorah might have wanted?"

"He told me."

She didn't believe him, but he didn't need her to as she breathed in what might have been a heavy chuckle. Jorah Mormont would appreciate the notion that Sandor and Sansa both had planned to give their firstborn son his name, of that Sandor was certain. It was something Sandor planned to speak to him about when next they met, which would not be soon, but once more before Sandor joined Mormont on that bridge between worlds. Mormont himself had said just before he left Sandor standing alone on the pier that they would not meet again until the last time, whatever that meant.

They had last parted on this walkway with Sandor returning to his little bird and Mormont moving on, but Sandor often found himself appearing in that harbor of white nothingness, waiting to move ahead or back. Mormont never came to him—no one did—but Sandor would wait all the same for permission to board an unseen boat or to be sent back to Winterfell where Sansa was anticipating his return. He sometimes found himself wandering north of the Wall or in the valley where Brother Ray's completed construction of the sept was the only thing to keep him company but more often than not, he sat before the harbor to answer the call of those who had come before him or to wake and find himself back with his wife and his wolf.

Sometimes she would be there beside him as he came to, but he would let her sleep, pulling her to him as they woke in the morning to let her know he had come back. During these periods, he was told after that Ghost would remain by his side except to hunt and urinate and the wolf was always the first to know when Sandor came back. Far more often than waking in his bed with his wife nearby, Sandor returned to himself to find that he was alone in their chambers and he would dash out into the corridor, calling for her at every turn until he saw her running to him. Every reunion was the same as when he had found her during the burning of King's Landing—tearful on her part and full of knee-weakening relief on his. No matter if he found her in the Great Hall, the stables, the godswood, or halfway down the staircase, she would throw herself at him and hang off of his neck, burying her face in his chest as he breathed in the scent of her hair. With or without an audience, they would stay this way where nothing and no one but the other existed.

He never tired of having her greet him in this fashion, for he felt enormous guilt for abandoning her for days at a time, never knowing exactly when he would return to her. It was by no will of his own that he disappeared into his own mind, but it renewed his love for her every time he felt her slender body against his. She would tell him with absolute certainty that she loved him and then he would kiss her until he felt himself growing aroused, but they did not always follow through on making love after. They retreated back to their room and lay abed together, but sometimes it was enough just to hold her and listen to her content breathing.

He must have been gone, though he could not say for how long as he came back to the touch of his little bird's arm across his chest, small but warm and welcoming, a reminder of why he always returned. She was home and happiness and the only thing that mattered. Her eyes remained closed but she snuggled closer to him, unaware that he was once again with her in both body and mind. Sandor supported her head and brought it to his chest as she slept through the triumphant sounding of the tower bells welcoming a new day and something more.

The first bells of the morning announcing the coming of summer.

/ /

**This is it. As health problems continue, I've finally managed to complete the last chapter and as always, apologies for how long it's taken to do so. I don't write epilogues and I don't like to tie up everything in one neat, tidy, cheesy, campy, fluffy bundle, so I tried not to. I struggled finishing this because I had only ever planned as far as the previous chapter but I realized that I wanted the story to both start and end with Sandor POV chapters, so one more needed to be added even though I had used up the last of my creative juices devoted to this story.**

**And the lack of said flowing juices (my, but that sounds dirty) is because while I've been one hot mess lately, I've also been brainstorming, bullet-pointing, and outlining what might very well be a new story sailing the same ship.**

**I began the story because I was so damn depressed after the ending of Season 8 and how the Sandor arc was finished, but I never expected for it to end up here. I've had fun, hope you all have as well-or at least felt some sort of emotion while reading.**

**All that's left to say is one final thank you-and be on the lookout. :)**


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